with all the devastation in the world hitting me rather hard these days, i've had the urge to write about the things in my life & history that bring me the most comfort and safety. here's the next installment:
where
the house once stood
someday
i
hope a long way off from now
we
are going to look and say
"that's
where the house once stood."
that's
where the porch swing outlived the cat
rocking
countless secrets shared,
coffees sipped,
flirtations exchanged,
wines poured,
phone
conversations whispered.
where
the front yard never went more than a season
without
a cheaply-made laminated sign hammered into the edge of the street
commanding
that passers-by "say no on 2" or "vote for deval" or simply to "go slow, children playing."
for
years we had a record player (do you know what that is?)
and
more afternoons than i can possibly recall
were
spent choreographing dances to Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,
double-pirouettes more achievable on the hardwood living room floors.
where
em and i were always burning the midnight oil, sprawled on the wraparound couch,
and she taught me how to take off my own bra with one hand.
the same couch waiting, years later, to cushion mom as she slept off the codine and the migraines.
that's
where we had a front door
that we didn't know how to lock til last year
thank
god
because
it meant kathy could burst through, unannounced
one
christmas when her family came back from the movies
to
find a gunman in their home across the street.
we
now spend every christmas night with them.
where
dad won his first election,
where
i got my acceptance to wesleyan,
where
20 rugby teammates had an impromptu slumber party,
where
we played "cards against humanity" with our neighbors, and the
under-30 crowd had to explain to our dads what a glory hole was.
that's
where the room above
housed
iterations of adolescence.
the
closet walls still markered-up from a third grader's baby-sitters club meetings
our
graffiti a reminder of when imagination was lived into reality.
the
lofted nook, now crowded with storage
was
once the only safe place to hide from the world
(to
try and hide from myself).
i'd listen to my favorite indigo girls cd on repeat, by just leaning over the edge to
the mounted shelf
and
pressing play on my new boom box.
and
the roof - oh, that roof!
where
stages of transgressions plodded along with the times:
initially crawling out there to sit was radical enough, sunning our pre-pubescent bodies and
pointing fingers at boys biking by.
then
it was first cigarettes and bowls - objectively stupider to do outside than in
but
we felt so much more hip getting to be under the stars.
then
there was margot. margot on the roof.
that's where we had a magic room. a sunroom.
smelling
of incense (or "incense"), stocked with ram daas, plush with yoga
pillows.
where
as children abby and i would beg to stay together, instead of our own separate
beds,
so
every tuesday night when dad was gone
mom
would snuggle between us and sing us sleepward.
where
in that same bed, in later years, i made sarah make me come out to her.
for
one year we had a back patio
that
i discovered with our backyard neighbor - a 10 x 10 patch of concrete where a
garage once stood.
putting
our younger siblings to work, my new friend and i cleaned that back patio so
hard!
that
was the summer of our moms perfecting their frozen margaritas,
the
summer i learned about divorce,
the
summer i had a best friend
leave.
this
house is where high school drama
led
all sorts of girlfriends (not that kind) to come crying at my
front stoop,
in
the days when we had our drivers licenses but not a cell phone.
the house where mom and dad have taken in any young person in need of a home
tiki
sarah emily emily cori emily izzy hannah sarah kali olivia marli harper kate
evermore 20 and 30 somethings staying for dinner or unforeseen nights
hammering chinks in the walls of nuclear family isolation.
someday
i
hope a long way off from now
we
are going to look and say
"that's
where the house once stood."
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