Brick By Brick

I am a thief.

I could put a good spin on this. I could say that I am adept at

• Stealing time
• Stealing hearts
• Stealing second
• Stealing glances

But that would be wrong. I stole a brick and I'm not sorry. I made it mine a long time ago, so to my thinking I just reclaimed. From someone else. In broad daylight. With a hammer. I can explain.

Most of my childhood was spent in the house my parents bought from my grandparents. It was big: three floors, four bedrooms, three-room attic, summer kitchen in the basement corner yard, big front porch with swing. Brick sidewalk.

My father was visionary. There was hardly a room that he didn't itch to change: Paint, wallpaper, put a wall up, knock a wall down, spray paint tree branches for the holidays, decoupage National Geographic maps onto walls. When he took a break from inside the house he turned to the outside. Planted a garden, fruit trees, statuary, hedgerows.

And then there was the sidewalk. The brick sidewalk.

It was, I believe, original to the house. The house was just over 100 years old in the 70’s and had been in my grandmother's family since it was built. The bricks were set deep into the ground in a classic running bond arrangement. Just the face of the brick visible. When you walked barefoot on it in the summer the hot masonry toasted your toes. It had stood up to years of use. When dirty it could be easily swept of loose rocks and leaves.

Obviously, to my father’s way of thinking, it had to go. But it didn't go easy. Oh no. It was the Summer of the Bricks. Why have children if not to assign a summer of grunt work?

First the bricks were pried from the earth and stacked on the porch. One by one the bricks were moved and stacked in groups of threes. Two together, one opposed, then reversed on the next layer. Just one problem was discovered after all of the bricks had been moved: they were in the way of the porch swing.

So, one by one the bricks were relocated to the side of the house. One by one the bricks were moved and stacked in groups of threes. Two together, one opposed, then reversed on the next layer.

Modern blacktop was mixed and poured to create a new sidewalk, our father did that part. When it was finished a second problem was discovered. Unlike the old brick sidewalk that had stood the test of time the new surface showed every crumb of dirt. What to do? Simple. A wall was needed to keep the dirt off the new sidewalk. What to use?

Bricks.

One by one the bricks were brought back to the sidewalk at the front of the house. The bricks were stacked along the new sidewalk. They became a retaining wall for a rock garden. A rock garden that needed dirt before it could be planted.

Dirt came from a vacant lot located down the steep road alongside the house. My brother and I shoveled the wheelbarrow full, pushed it up the road, above the sidewalk, and tipped it behind the bricks. Load after load. After load. After load.

Then the planting began. Portulaca. Marigolds. Impatiens. Watered daily and washing the dirt onto the sidewalk. That was another problem (one that we had not experienced when the bricks were a sidewalk and not a wall) So began the epic washing away the dirt. Daily. Squirting the dirt off the sidewalk, onto the steps, then the porch, then down alongside the side of the house, followed by still more steps, the back porch, and into the backyard. It took all summer, most of our fingernails, plenty of elbow grease, and several smashed fingers.

I hated those bricks.

I wasn't strong enough to move more than two at a time. So I marched back and forth with a brick in each hand. There were a lot of bricks. It was a long sidewalk. Especially when you are a kid. Moving them four times over the space of the summer: heavy, red clay, ridges. Endless. Stacked in groups of threes. Two together, one opposed, then reversed on the next layer.

I know now that in addition to the wall we were supposed to be building responsibility. Character. Contributing to the family. Stick-to-itive-ness. Doing our part.

Resentment. That's what I remember feeling. A summer lost for the sake of some impatiens and portulaca. Smashed fingers and sunburn for a porous asphalt surface and rock garden.

Less than ten years later and I was out of that house. Married. Less than a year after that my parents sold the house and moved two hours away. The wall remained. It held firm. The heavy old bricks squaring their shoulders against the weight of the vacant-lot-dirt-berm. The new owners preferring petunias.

Twenty years later found me leaving home again. Starting over in a new state and recreating my life. My soul feeling weightless, unmoored. Drifting without anchor and uncertain how to make the transition from where I thought I was to what I now would be. I needed a sturdy bridge, something to get me from where I thought I would be to wherever and whatever would come next.

I went back my childhood home and parked at the end of the corner lot. Much had changed, but the lilacs and Rose-of-Sharon bushes I’d helped plant, water, and prune were still there. I walked up the hill where so long ago I had strained to push a wheelbarrow filled with dirt. Then I stood on the muddy blacktop and raised my still-a-little-longer-husband's hammer and smashed free the end brick.

It didn't come quick. It didn't come easy. But it did come free from the rest. So I stole it.

For the past 17 years I moved the brick four times. It now sits close by my desk. I see it nearly every day. No impatiens or portulaca dress its surface. Cement still clings to it, rough and harsh. I have no idea if the other bricks are still there. I didn't need them. I needed this one.

Bricks can build many things. I know this from experience. They can build a wall.... or a bridge. My father taught me how to build a wall and learned my lesson well. I’ve built the walls around me carefully. Block by block. Holding back carefully that which threatened to spill through.

Disguising it with the careful plantings I wanted people to notice. Staying busy, moving from one hobby to another. Being useful, responsible, doing my part. I’ve squared my shoulders and faced life anticipating hard work and no thanks. Making a sturdy wall.

Maybe someday I won't need this brick or anything else weighing me down. Maybe my journey from then to now will be complete. And I won't need the bridge anymore. But not just yet, I think. I’m hanging on to this just a little longer. Maybe I'll paint a flower on it.

(If you want a brick of your own The Pennsylvania Clay Company, circa 1880- 1920, bricks are selling for between $6 and $25 each online these days, plus shipping.)

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If this article reached you please click the heart below to let me know. Some other articles I've written as I work away at the walls I've built around me: