I Get Nostalgic

I have always had a strange connection with place. For me where something happens, the atmosphere is just as important to the event as the people involved, or whatever is actually happening. My childhood is no different. The street I lived on, the house I lived in, the rooms I inhabited, meant as much to me as what I did there, and the people with whom I shared them. I understand this may seem like a slightly emotionally detached insight to growing up, but my home was like a living being with a personality all its own. It was the fourth member of my family; it protected me, and inspired me...

I grew up in an average sized ranch house in a small development just outside of the city, where most of the houses were pretty similar with only minor variations to their designs. All the yards were manicured with green grass, flowers, shrubs, and a collection of decade old sugar maple trees that survived the genocide when the quagmire was filled in and now antique construction vehicles came and removed their kin. The road was last fully paved some point in the 60s but was quilted with a patch work of varying aged cement squares where pot holes were filled and construction work was done to connect houses to public sewer, gas lines and the occasional removal of over grown tree roots that infiltrated the public works lines. These patches were connected with webs of tar that would become gooey on hot days and stick to the wheels of our bicycles and rollerblades, inhibiting the high rates of speed we so wished to achieve, and mucking up the under side of our flip flops and tennis shoes. We would sit in the middle of the street poking at it watching it stretch and bend to our prodding and when not manipulated beyond the point of detachment, we would watch it slowly ease back to its prior form, nestled into the crevasse between the puckered and broken road.

On warm summer days we would lie in the grass between foot races, and bike rides and general make believe play, and stare up at the clouds, through the leaves of the two maple trees that sat at the front corners of out property. One old enough that an adult man would not be able touch his fingers together if he attempted to hug it, and the other, older than it looked, was scarred and its growth stunted as a young sapling due to an accidental fire started one fourth of July when some inebriated patriots lost control of a bottle rocket. This poor tree, happen to be one of the few trees in the neighborhood that was added to the property after construction. 

Under the large picture window was a set of rose bushes, one pink, the other yellow, which after I was 9 years old, grew each summer to be over 8 feet tall and easily three feet around. They would flower from mid spring well into fall. The sudden spike in growth and fertility was due to the interest I had taken in them. With careful grooming and nurturing, they thrived. They became an icon of the summer for me, the first buds a symbol of an up coming freedom and carefreeness that only summer as a child could provide

The cast iron railing that guided the steps in the front of our house had been neglected for most of their years and by the time I was a teenager were a mix of rust and chipping white paint. The concrete steps leading to our front door, (which was hardly ever used) showed little signs of age with the exception of their gradually growing disconnection with the paved path that led up to them. This path separated my front yard into two distinctive regions. 

The interior of the house consisted of a living room; eat-in kitchen, a four-piece bath, and three bedrooms. Split in two, front to back, by a load-baring wall that ran the length of the house, the "back door" and common entrance into the house sat in reality on the side of the southeast wall of the house to the rear of the support wall. The door lead to a breeze-way that connected the house with the one car garage, which through out my life only housed a car two, maybe three times in total. 

The breeze-way was a square, 10x10 room that server more purposes than feasible to list, but for me, my favorite purpose was a read/napping room. I loved sitting out there on warm summer evenings, with the louvered windows opened completely, the lights off, resting in the wicker chair that I dragged in from the deck, reading by flash light, wrapped in a sheet taken from my bed. I would sit out there for hours listening to the interesting mix of sounds that came from my quiet neighborhood, tucked close enough to the highway and main road that you could hear distant cars speeding towards, then away from you, occasional sirens from passing fire trucks or ambulances, and loud radio of a group of teenagers enjoying the freedom of a weeknight not tainted by the threat of school in the morning.

I can't easily recall any days in particular that are not associated with events like holidays, or birthdays that were located in that house. Instead, I have glimpses of moments, and the feelings attached to them. I have images in my head of things that I would do everyday, simple mundane events that made me comfortable and safe, happy and relaxed. When I drive by that house today, nearing 10 years since I left it, I can still see the awkwardly tall nine year old on a ladder pruning the roses, the two girls lying on the grass in the front yard in over-sized character tee shirts listening to the radio perched in the window, I see the faint glow of a flash light in the dark, floating between the house and the garage. 

That is my childhood, my home.