Revisiting

The house I grew up in is now a store.  A running and walking shoe store, to be exact.  The point is, you can walk in whenever they’re open and see the dining room where I played piano and made up songs about my brother’s stuffed animals, the kitchen where I learned of my parents’ fears about this new scourge, AIDS, and whether my dear uncle would be safe, the bedroom where I first dreamed I loved a boy, and the living room where I was shaken, not stirred, for being such a bad, bad girl.

Of course, it’s all shoes. And Lycra-bearing athletic wear.

But I ran into an old friend the other day who said she’s been in there, just to see the house where I lived when she knew me. Which makes me wonder if other people do the same thing.

Does my best friend from those days still try the front steps tentatively, afraid she might fall in again when the rotting wood gives way?

Do kids who grew up in that neighborhood rush by the house, worried that the huge St. Bernard might still be there, lurking in the bushes?

Does the boy down the street, who is the father of one of my best friend’s children, still come to climb the big magnolia tree? Does he go all the way to the top the way we used to and make the tree sway and dip and almost let him go?

Does the boy I loved but not enough sometimes drop by in the night to throw pebbles at my bedroom window?

I only live a mile away from that house now. And at night, sometimes, I hear the little tap of pebbles and rise up and go out into the dark quiet of my town to walk the abandoned streets.

I walk to the Chinese gardens where I’d meet my friend to perform the secret, sacred rituals of growing up in a place so circular, I can still see myself, way back there.

In a house filled with running shoes.

Tags: childhood, memory, mourning, youth