Antioch is My Motherland

I arrived at the Amtrak station on First and E street near the delta with my DSLR. It’s Valentine’s day today and it’s the first one I’ll spend alone since my divorce. The plan is to capture some footage of all my favorite parts of Antioch for a writing challenge. I don’t live here, anymore and so the drive “home” certainly boasts the perfect love and nostalgia that no box of chocolates or clearance jewelry could give. There was nothing cheesy about being here, today.

Just as I finish attaching my telephoto lens, I hear a train approaching the station. I quickly jump out of my GMC terrain and run to the veranda where you can look out on the delta and watch trains pass through. Just as I make it to the right spot, I hit record. This will be the first shot of my “Hometown” short.

I decided to start filming in the Town Center near the Delta because this is where it all began. In 1848, twin brothers Reverend Will Smith and Reverend Joseph Smith sailed from Boston Massachusetts and purchased some land they called Smith’s landing until they changed the name to Antioch after the city in Syria. I guess you can say this place has a familial foundation with an inclusive start.

There I was, resting alongside one of the oldest standing buildings in Antioch, which was now leased by a plumbing company. It was in perfect condition and right on the water, a mere thirty feet from the train tracks. When I hit record on my camera, a couple of motorcycles buzzed by, making my shot that much cooler. We were off to a good start.

I decided I would walk through the entire downtown area and capture as much charm as I could before heading farther inland to the developed parts of town. I passed by the Campanali Theater where, thanks to this challenge, I learned Debbie Reynolds and The Three Stooges had performed. Who would have thought this small town would headline those prestigious names in this small theater?

That’s not all who visited.

In 1985 Humphrey the Whale took a detour on his swim from Mexico to Alaska and came to visit Antioch by swimming up the San Juaquin River. It took the Navy Coast Guard two days to coax the 45 ton whale out of Antioch. Imagine that.

Once I’d captured all I could from downtown, I realized I was losing light.

I thought “I need to hurry to Chabot before it gets dark”.

So, I started for Hillcrest Ave.- The long, beautiful treelined road to Wildhorse. What a drive that was. It was so beautiful I knew this shot had to be in the short. I grabbed my camera, handled the wheel and pressed record.

When you live in the same house for fifteen years, the road home is so incredibly packed with imprints of every stage of your time there that if you consider yourself a sensory intuitive, you can relive any memory you want.

Today, on Valentine’s day, I was divorced with two kids driving on Hillcrest heading to Chabot St. In the fifteen years I drove or rode this ride home, I can remember being six, ten, sixteen and eighteen. Driving home after a party. Driving home after a day out on the boat. Driving home after a girl scouts meeting or after the 4th of July Parade I’d just performed in while my mother scolded me for getting my belly button pierced without her permission.

As I approach the light on Hillcrest and Wildhorse, I see the 7-11 in the corner shopping center where Singh and his family worked. They’d owned this 7-11 since I was six years old. They were family friends of ours, yet we never spent any time together- we only watched each other’s families grow up.

I’m still recording as I hit the gas. I’m only about six blocks from 4116 Chabot St and I can feel my body warming up. It’s as if I buried a stone here that livens me the closer I get to it.

I made the left turn on Folsom and saw the Fire Department that wasn’t built for several years after we moved in. I saw each house as I drew closer, remembering where I’d fallen off my bike, the dog that had a kanipshin every time I walked or biked past. I never did meet that dog.

I finally make the right turn on Chabot, camera still rolling and my heart opens up. My body knows this drive. There she is. 4116 Chabot St.

The tree we planted in the front when we moved in was massive. Maybe twenty feet high. The house still had the same vertical blinds my mother installed in the bedrooms. I know this because it’s not common for a bedroom to have vertical blinds, but she wanted consistency in every window. What an incredible feeling. I haven’t been here in ten years.

I reveled in my afterglow on the way home. I’d spent the entire night before going through hundreds of pictures of memories made here for the Hometown Short. Seeing it was better than sex. I couldn’t stop smiling.

When I sat down at my laptop to edit, I was filled up entirely.

I realized that the house I grew up in was more than just a home, but a monument.

I began my life as a writer, dancer, choreographer in that very home. The large mirror in the hallway was the same space where I rehearsed my first competitive routine at nine, wrote cheers for a team I coached at fourteen and where I choreographed a routine for the Golden State Warrior Girls at eighteen. I was a novice starting out in this house and became a professional in the same space.

I wrote short stories in the office and won a young authors award at eight in this house and wrote my first play that I got to direct at fifteen in this house.

I hatched in this nest and soared when I flew from it.

Initially I thought today, Valentine’s Day was going to be sad. But I don’t think I could have asked for a better way to celebrate love. My love for writing, for filming and for my hometown.

Antioch is where I began. This isn’t just my home, this is my motherland.