It was almost 12, and you were leaning against the truck door, listening to Sky Sailing on your iTouch, with your blue and black Paul Frank earbuds, when you realized that you had a perfect mental map of where you were.
That bend meant you were passing the grocery store. . . then the highschool. . . . the YMCA. Then there was the intersection, where on the right there'd always be someone selling various fruits or sometimes just tomatoes, and on the left, some days in the summer that van with a huge, red white and blue turtle on the roof of it would park, and the lady would set up her folding table and sell live baby turtles.
You'd always want to buy one whenever you'd see it. Even though your family already once had a turtle.
Then there was the construction on the left, and the shopping center on the right, a little anthill of fast-food places and banks and stores and another grocery store. Then the car paused, and you know that you're at the 4 way intersection, and that if you turn left there's Walmart, go straight for the gas-station and turn right to drive past the 2 banks and a Chick-Fil-A.
And you let your head loll to the side when the truck turns into the neighborhood, crack them open a peek to see the lit-up sign proclaiming the name of the picket-fence community. And as it pulls into the driveway, you remember something. An old memory, dusty with age, stained with a child's innocence and naivete.
It's a memory of coming home late to the old house, the one you grew up in.
You lived in a funny little set of houses on top of a hill. At the bottom of the hill was a lake-side beach that you'd go every summer. If you went past that, there was the elementary school you went to. But if you turned right at the beach, you'd crawl up the little hill.
And you remember. It was dark, and whenever the car turned into the neighborhood, it made a clicking sound. A little light would flash, but you wouldn't know it was a turn signal until you were older.
And whenever you heard those clicks, you'd pretend to be asleep. Shut your eyes real tight, and not say anything, even when you pull into the gently-inclined driveway and your mother nudges your little leg.
You'd think you were so smart, so sneaky. Pretending to be asleep so you could get carried upstairs. You wouldn't know that your parents totally knew you were awake, until a little while after you learned about the turn signal.
They'd carry you through the red front-door, through the living room, kitchen, past the sliding doors that lead to backyard, the playground hanging desolate in the dark, and then up the stairs, that sat next to the bathroom (where a blue finger-painting of your own creation hang proudly).
Whenever your mother reached the landing, the little half-circle between the 2 flights of stairs, you'd crack your eyes open, just a peek, to see the painting of the trumpet-player, and your sister being carried up by your father, and your mother's short, brown hair.
Then you'd squeeze your eyes shut again, nuzzle a little closer into her neck, and allow yourself to be tucked in.
Bitter-sweet nostalgia, paired with childhood oblivion. Oh, but what a pair.
No comments:
Post a Comment