Saturday, October 14, 2006
365 days
October 14, 2005. It was the first night spent in my first house. This house. I remember that afternoon. It was warm and sunny. I was waiting for the bed to be delivered. Nothing else was here, really. The next day was the Big Move.
I sat on the hardwood floor in the living room and looked out the windows. They had been cleaned in anticipation of a sale. Ladybug-lookalike beetles peppered the front of the house, pinging into the windows and the clapboard. Some of the little bastards got inside... the windows aren't so very flush. I got pinched by one. I wasn't dreaming.
The big truck pulled up. Two guys set up the bed. My first new bed in my adult life. Pillow top. After they left, I just rested there, akimbo. Quiet. I'd forgotten what it sounded like. I could hear birds. A lawnmower in the distant. What I didn't hear was raucous laughter, the jukebox, ashtrays clattering.
That night I returned with a coffee pot, a mug... supplies for the morning. And a pizza. I sat on the floor again, ate my Pagliai's Palace Special, and listened to the sounds of the neighborhood settling in. Later, floating on the pillow top, I wondered how I'd ever get used to the quiet hum of my new surroundings.
So much has happened in the 365 days since I've been here. I still haven't lost the feeling I get when I turn the key in the lock. Or when I pull clean sheets and blankets up around my ears and cocoon myself in the calm.
Four days later, the happiness I felt was taken over by a sadness so deep. And an anger I've never known.
Who dat snappin' back? |
I sat on the hardwood floor in the living room and looked out the windows. They had been cleaned in anticipation of a sale. Ladybug-lookalike beetles peppered the front of the house, pinging into the windows and the clapboard. Some of the little bastards got inside... the windows aren't so very flush. I got pinched by one. I wasn't dreaming.
The big truck pulled up. Two guys set up the bed. My first new bed in my adult life. Pillow top. After they left, I just rested there, akimbo. Quiet. I'd forgotten what it sounded like. I could hear birds. A lawnmower in the distant. What I didn't hear was raucous laughter, the jukebox, ashtrays clattering.
That night I returned with a coffee pot, a mug... supplies for the morning. And a pizza. I sat on the floor again, ate my Pagliai's Palace Special, and listened to the sounds of the neighborhood settling in. Later, floating on the pillow top, I wondered how I'd ever get used to the quiet hum of my new surroundings.
So much has happened in the 365 days since I've been here. I still haven't lost the feeling I get when I turn the key in the lock. Or when I pull clean sheets and blankets up around my ears and cocoon myself in the calm.
Four days later, the happiness I felt was taken over by a sadness so deep. And an anger I've never known.
