Google Earth is bad for my nostalgic tendencies. Somebody told me about this site ages ago and I'm just now falling prey to it. Look, you can see the foursquare markings on my elementary school playground! How crazy is that! The ability to track your history, your paths across the globe, your daily routes is a very strange thing. I spy on my childhood homes locked by satellite photo in a permanent state of winter. I can see the creek I used to play in as a toddler, the house on Blood Road (yes, named after Captain Blood) that we lived in for only a month. With the touch of my mouse I can follow my path to school and stop by my friend's house.

I don't know what to do with this kind of nostalgia. What does any of it matter? Still, I'm grateful for it. It helps me tap into those joyful and horrific moments that have been all but lost. There's the tree in Catherine's yard that I was scared to climb. There's the bird sanctuary that loomed like an evil garden across the street. There's the club pool I swam in every day of the summer, comforted by the silence of water.