The Road Behind, A Memory Best Forgotten....

March 2003

The sky has that strange brightness it gets after a heavy rain. In through my window sneaks the scent of rain on concrete. The sky is a flat gray slab, just a tone to add to all the other grays in my view.

I love this time of year.... the plants sneaking up from the ground, the leaves unfurling. Soon there will be the scent of lilacs and magnolia. Along my driveway are the deepest purple lilac. So dark they look black in their throat. The scent is cloying and sweet.... and at night, when you stride down the lane, the birds singing their dusk lullabies, it's the lilac that greets you.

We moved into the house in May. Or rather, I moved in with my paint brushes and stereo. I would fill the house with music to cut my uneasiness. The windows black eyes that told my secrets to the street. Sometimes I would stop painting and go sit on the front porch. There used to be a large cedar shrub near the front door, the old chair hidden from prying eyes. I would sit there, with my green tea and listen to the trees. Coming from my apartment surrounded by concrete, this was so overwhelming. I remember the first morning I slept in the house, the birds in the big old maple tree woke me at five in the morning. I felt like someone had tuned on the radio right next to my ear.

I had loved that house in the beginning. It was like a pearl. A gallant old lady that only I could see the beauty in. My friends had thought that it would never be nice. It was so scruffy and frayed at the edges. I had faith though. I knew she had good bones and with enough elbow grease I could make her beautiful. And although she is not beautiful, she is far more handsome than I found her.

The day I drove up the lane to take my place in the houses history, in her story... the garden was over run and filled with possibility. Much has changed since then.

I have changed since then.

I am so frightened some days. If I allow it to live in me, if I give it any footing, I may not go through with it. There is always money, always a question of "can I make it through this, it's really not that bad". But, if I listen to that fear nothing will change, and like the house, I will outgrow myself.

I am tired of not being me. Of not living in truth. It is a burden that I can no longer stand, like gritting one's teeth. I know you understand what I mean.

My first night, alone in my new place... I am going to buy my favorite bottle of wine and sit in all my rooms.. as small and shabby as they may or may not be... and be thankful. I am going to toast my future. I am going to revel in the fact that I just made it through the last eight years .... and now I am free to be alive again.

Then I will go listen to the birds. It may not be the old Maple tree.... but it will be my new world. And that will be enough.



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