the moving days

dear muffin,


today saw the start of real packing. school room = bomb scene. we went through all our books & sorted them into keep, throw away, give away, & sell piles. emphasis on piles. everywhere. 

also got to thumb through some old notebooks, which was simultaneously horrifying & hilarious. really, I don't think any kid went through so many handwriting transformations as this one. there were some sketchbooks, too, & "Queen Kristen and princessess" was a repeated theme. not sure whether the "princessess" were supposed to be Queen Kristen's daughters, friends, slaves, or papparazzi... but they were all at least two heads shorter than the Queen herself. humility at its best.

it's strange going through old schoolbooks. it throws me right back into that chair, pencil in hand, with the schoolroom lights burning on my neck while I scribble my way through workbooks. doesn't seem like that long ago, but so much has changed. & it's changing again.

it's not that I dislike the new place. but it's just that: new. at least, as new as a 40-year-old house can be. the stairs creak unfamiliarly, like they do at a new family's home when we go for dinner and ask polite questions in an effort to get to know each other. who are you? what is your story? where did you grow up?

I grew up on 731 New Mexico Court, in the house that used to be orange. the house with the pine tree out front that hosted mourning doves every spring until we cut the tree down. somewhere in the front yard is buried a pile of my eight-year-old treasures: pretty pieces of broken glass & small toys sacrificed for a pirate's cause. in the back yard was buried a time capsule that my brother & I opened only two days later, after a summer rainstorm washed away its cover.

I've lived here since I was 5 years old, and anything prior is a mere scrap of memory, a snapshot image of a yard filled with sun or a porch looking out onto a street I can't quite picture.

this town is my town.

***

leather burns against my skin as I slide into the back seat of the car. my brother buckles, revs the engine, & turns the radio up to blasting. country station. I know the lyrics by heart. my seatbelt clicks into place, the windows roll down, & we back over the curb at the end of our driveway. Mr. Thomas waves before disappearing into his garage next door. my brother turns the car 360 & punches the gas.

sun in my eyes, wind in my hand as I trace waves out my window. the town slips between my fingers; I see my siblings laughing in the front seat, noiseless as the whole car throbs with bass from the radio. I can feel the song pulse through my ribcage. my sister's cheeks are pulled tight with laughter & judging by my brother's facial expression, he's singing falsetto right along with Taylor Swift.

scenes flick by my window. the Chinese lady walks her little black dog. the older gentleman sits in his lawn chair, watches traffic. the marquee displays time & temperature. my brother instinctively squeezes the brakes as we pass the police station, then picks up speed once clear of dutiful enforcement radars.

this town is my town.

sometimes I feel as if we owned it, my siblings & I; as we walk through the parking lot & up to the sliding doors of Food4Less, I momentarily have the irrational feeling that we could take on the world. the cashier recognizes us with a laugh; since we can be found roaming the aisles at least three times per week, a few employees have begun to remember us. she asks us how we're doing, & we ask her how the cancer treatment is going.

we're back in the car, headed home with groceries in hand. my brother suddenly turns down the radio and says quietly, "you know, it's strange. this move is going to be the end of an era. 'the Elk Grove house,' we'll call it. 'remember when we lived in the Elk Grove house?'" for a moment we stare out the windows, seeing nothing. then the radio climbs back to a normal volume, and we drive home in silence. I know the song, but don't feel like singing anymore.

the Elk Grove house. remember when...?

***

change. it takes hold of the rug beneath our feet & jerks it sharply. it puts normal in a blender, turns it up on high, & hands us a fresh plate of the unfamiliar. someday this change will be the new normal, & I will know those creaking stairs in Woodstock as well as I once knew the ones in "the Elk Grove house." someone else will move into the house on the cul-de-sac, and they will begin the task of memorizing the pattern of air-conditioning cycles. they will soon learn that if you step on the right side of the 1st, 3rd, and 5th basement stairs, no creak will give away your midnight presence after a sibling movie night.

right now I see four blank walls & an empty floor, windows overlooking a foreign yard full of foreign Woodstock... but someday I will look & see my bedroom. I will glance over my shoulder & revisit the days leading up to the moment: the boxes, the cleaning, the packing. each memory will follow on the heels of another, forming an unbroken line between then & now.

I'm going to miss all this. I'm going to miss it like crazy. I'll miss the Food4Less, the goofy green-and-orange clock tower my town built to copy Schaumburg's, the way a police car always lurks behind the school on Biesterfield road. I'll miss being able to run over to starbucks with you at a moment's notice.

but that's not really it. it's not the town; it's these times I'm going to miss. because I know that life is changing fast, that it has been for a while now. "the Elk Grove house" will forever be home to some of my favorite memories.

tonight I sat on our green basement couch, savoring the familiar touch of knobbly fabric, and considered some of the changes in my life up to this point. I remember hating the idea of visiting a new church; then the pain of being torn away once we'd become attached to it. I remember the uncertainty of starting our own little church; now I wouldn't trade it. I'm old enough to understand that God works things out for the best, & young enough to kick and scream anyway.

promise me you'll come fill up the new house with new memories? it's a blank slate, ready to be scribbled on. with some good friends to help, it shouldn't take long to transform the newly-painted walls. I claim the yellow crayon.

we can open the new chapter together.

always,

rory