you don’t visit your grandparents on your mother’s side that often, not nearly as much as those on your father’s side. your father’s parents are obligatory people. everything you know of their history, you've heard within closed doors and through words unspoken.

your mother’s parents live in the same house she grew up in. they tend to plants they’ve been raising for decades, and their bookshelves hold everything their children have written. family photos line the walls, frames intricate, wooden.

people don’t frame the photographs they don’t care about. your world is ephemeral and minimalistic and burdened. you thought you didn’t know what it was like to be stationary, to be rooted to a house for more than three years at a time. but you return here every other year.

this place stays the same. the people stay the same. your face, still, in that big family photograph above your grandmother's bedroom door.