Nostalgia
I said goodbye to the house.
This evening, I left the shingled cover of the carport and walked across the front acre. The grass was dry but green, and little white weeds popped out in patches pretending to be something pretty. It took less than two minutes to make it all the way to the new black board fence that lined the property, separating it from the road. Just enough time to remember everything we’ve ever done here. I perched myself on the top board of the fence and looked back up towards the house, watching my childhood unfold as the sun sank further into the horizon. Twenty-three years. My whole life, this place. Funny shaped two-story. Red brick, asymmetrical roof. Too many attics, no basement. No one in Florida has a basement.
An antennae tower attached to the back of the house got used more often by my siblings and me to climb up to the roof than its express purpose. We went through four trampolines jumping off that roof. Destroyed three pools in the back yard. Countless sprinklers gave their lives in the war against the summer heat.
The front acres, now lined by one pretty fence, had once held more horses than three riders would know what to do with. Feisty ponies dodged in an out of the single row of pines separated the field one-fourth to three, trying their hardest to knock us off. We weren’t scared. I broke my arm right there in the middle. You always get back up.
Left and all the way across, just over the neighbor’s fence, sat the perfect climbing tree. All hunched over, low branches, practically laying on the ground. I can still remember my big brother and his friend playing there, screaming and laughing and not letting me join. Sisters can’t climb fences to climb trees. Even perfect trees. At least, not back then. His friend died four years later; wet road, too fast. It’s funny, that is my clearest memory of them. That perfect tree.
The sky was clear, blue, with just enough cotton white for the jets to crisscross the sky with scars. Seven thirty. The sun fell behind the back trees and the moon grinned crescent in the middle of the sky. It’s April in Florida and good times rarely come without the bad. Everything is bittersweet, now, but the weather is gorgeous when it isn’t pissing on us. Here, the weather often forgets itself. Maybe it’s the humidity…it gets to all of us before too long. By summer’s end, we all have salty soup brains and red cheeks and brown shoulders and jiffy store feet. On this evening, day bled into night. The breeze stayed cool.
I said goodbye to the house.
Parties always went too late. The adults inside sipped coffee while the kids outside played a game. In the dark, in the woods, around corners, bated breath. Shhh. Hiding always made my heart beat faster. Hiding always made my hands shake. Hiding always made my legs hurt, crouched and ready to jump. The footsteps were never quiet enough. An eruption of screaming would give them away. Everyone ran. Tripped, tagged; it.
On summer nights, three winners share one hammock. Eaten by mosquitos, telling stories to the stars. Life is good even when it isn’t. Three winners, 3 am, mourn the life that could have been. The hardest times are the sweetest. Throwing darts at our own pictures, laughing at ourselves.
I said goodbye to the house.
Six pennies in my back pocket. One for each family member. Pops. Mum. Jay. Me. Bethy. Beks. A penny held up to the crescent in the sky. Filled with prayers. Filled with hope. Me for them and them for me. One at a time, and then stacked onto the black fence post. The pennies stay so the next family will have what we had. The pennies stay so the next kids will grow up like we did.
Twenty-three years, my whole life. This place. But I am glad to share.
I said goodbye to the house.
