Since I moved here, 20 months ago, there have been times when a sort of longing has come over me for the house I left in Victoria. It's odd because that time has become an almost surreal memory. It seems to have flown by and left no trace. Two and a half years of my life in supreme turmoil and upheaval where spent there. Some of my most miserable moments, a time of soul-searching but also a time of letting go, relinquishing the old and waste of years that had come before. It was sort of like finding something that had been lost for a very long time: me.
One thing I know about myself -- I'm given to place, to the meaning of place, how it defines and delineates my life. That house was a real turning point. I almost literally felt myself do a 180 while I lived there. I've called it my transition house, and that's truer than I even believed when I gave it that name.
Yesterday I had need to go there again. A box had been delivered for me there by mistake. Was this some kind of eerie fate working? or just a computer glitch that autofilled my old address into the SHIP TO line on the order? Both perhaps.
Turning onto Trinity Street felt so familiar but in a time-warped way. I was removed from it, a deja vu moment rather than real memory, the two and a half years there a mere blip in my timeline. Everything but the redbud tree I planted was gone from the back yard. The esparanza, the ginger plant, the blue plumbago, the caladiums -- all dug up and carted away. The wooden fence in front has been extended to block out the "ugly" neighbors to the west of the house. Cat fence was no longer. Same with the fountain urn. A couple of plants I planted there remained, but most of those in front were gone, too.
The new owner was sunbathing in the sideyard, a usurper, but also a reminder that I was no longer connected to this place. Who was that woman? I wondered briefly about her, sitting with her lounger on top of my "new path," which I was happy to see intact. Building that walkway had done wonders to clear me mentally, although I suspect it was also where I injured my foot, spilling a load of pavers when the cart carrying them upturned. I sat there on that grass, holding onto my hurt foot, as tears of pain came spontaneously.
The woman came to the front door to hand me my errant box. I could hardly resist a peek inside. Tile floor still the same -- a $5000 cheapshot to my gut. I'd given them a tile allowance at closing to replace the loose tiles. A piano stood where my mother-in-law's buffet had been. But I hardly noticed anything else. Not my house anymore. My soul had exited these premises.
The woman -- I don't even recall her name -- was prettier than I remembered her as being. She had the look of a pampered, "kept" woman, which I actually think she is. Her smile was friendly. She said she was enjoying the house. I drove off happy to have my box, didn't look in the rearview mirror, felt no old longing.
I came home and hung a clock in my new travel trailer out under the carport. I put down stepping stones in the garden, a utilitarian walkway this time, to keep my feet out of the mud. My "new path" has been built, left behind. For an hour I doddered in the greenhouse, the mindless, therapeutic work I've come to need and love. I talked to my SO a dozen or more times on the phone, shared my owl story with him, laughed at his equally funny dog story. I missed him in bed last night, only slept three hours. I'm up before sunrise, thinking about a couple of writing projects I want to start today, waiting for Thursday when I will join him in Grand Junction, anticipating the visit with my son and his partner in Monument Valley this coming Easter Sunday. I'm about to make coffee and sit with the cat. Read a while.
There's a newly planted redbud tree in full bloom off the back patio, out there in the morning darkness. It's become a kind of ritual for me to plant one in the places where I live. Does three times make a tradition? My SO dug the hole for this one. I think maybe this tree is the most special. It's shared.
Onward ....
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