Home Loss

This is the day our house in Anchorage no longer belongs to us. As much as I embrace this next adventure, a part of me will always miss the neighborhood we just left. I wrote what follows in my notebook today, my hand moving across the page without stopping to rest:

As the rooms grow empty, furniture sold, boxes packed, pictures taken down, revealing a hole in your son's door, there when you moved in and covered by a heart colored years ago by a little boy who is no longer so, a dent in the laminate floor, where the center leg held the bed you shared with the man who built the master suite with his own nimble hands,

with help from family and friends who will no longer live a beer can toss away, a custom started as a love prank between your husband and your carpenter neighbor, crushed Pabst Blue Ribbon cans tossed into each other's snow covered roofs, back when it still snowed in Anchorage, in the winter, and your children made angels, shared sleds, threw snowballs, and built forts together, miniature ice homes that melted in spring, temporary shelters, like these places you call home,

until you move, six-and-a-half years here, on Logan Street and the corner of 17th, with the giant Birch tree, strong enough for four swings, so all the neighbor kids could play, the Iris planted by the first owners over fifty years ago, strong enough to grow in the driveway, re-seeding and spreading from underground, wild roses, Ragusa and Sitka, that marked the corner house, where you hosted annual summer block parties, playing games in the street, ping pong, washer toss, basketball, corn hole,

or that time the giant slingshot emerged and adult children launched water balloons at neighbors as far as you could reach, too far now to join the rumpus, cars packed with boxes, keys delivered to the young family who will call 1626 Logan street home,

you toast with champagne and Jordan almonds, happy for each other, but under your smile lie damned salt water for the friends you leave behind, in your car sit homemade muffins, gluten-free with chocolate chip and Craisins, made as a departing gift to mirror the muffins delivered to your front door the month you arrived in Airport Heights with a boy in kindergarten and a daughter two weeks old, delivered by a neighbor with a newborn girl of her own,

your girls would grow up between houses, close as sisters, they ran between dens, starting young, as a toddler, your daughter rescued in the road, by another loving neighbor, who watched her slip out the open gate and waddle towards her friend's house, determined to find grace,

you love your neighborhood village, connected by small lots, sidewalks, and big hearts, everyone aware of each other, willing to lend an egg, a ladder, seed pods, a hand to lift that weight, oh Airport Heights, 

we leave a part of us behind as we venture anew.

Comments

[Karen Erickson]

I both love this post, and am saddened by it. Much love and hugs from me, to all of you. You take a part of me with you. <3

[Christy]

I hope you come visit us here someday Karen:)