The Front Door

She leans in a forgotten place.

Perhaps, my Mothers garage.

Covered in a decade worth of dust kicked up from passers by — who can't remember how important she once was. I imagine she feels she is hibernating. Using her winter to recall the sound of tiny feet hitting wooden steps. Of hands against her frame. And of raindrops and sunlight.

Her view of the outside is blocked by a dozen boxes and a noisy garage door. A grumble and thump announce the incoming rush of something familiar, before she is shut in darkness. Again.

“I think that was a breeze”, she ponders. And I imagine she must smile.

She would be well over a hundred by now. And had known the wind well in her youth. Although she always stood tall and strong to keep the wind out, she admired its freedom now.

“Oh, the things the wind must see. It must know how those tiny feet have grown.”

There is a house that visits me in my dreams, when I am lucky. It is not a mansion. It is not perfect. In fact, the house of my dreams is a place that no longer exists. I come from this place— that no longer exists.

* * * * *

In another foggy life, there sat little farm house in Canada, nestled sweetly on an acre of land. Surrounded by a border of poppies and daffodils. A cherry tree, whose crown of limbs I knew the underside of, like the back of my hand. The time I would pass swinging beneath those limbs, and staring toward the sky… were all I’ve ever really known of “care-free.” Seven blissful years. Learning to ride my bike down the gravel driveway. Picking blossoms from the dogwood tree. Dancing on the front porch as if there were no tomorrow. In my dreams, I am there. Dancing again.

The first death I ever recall mourning, was that of my cherry tree. I was 7. She was my friend. My confidant. The keeper of all my wishes. And she was the first to be sacrificed for my Fathers dream. I remember looking out my bedroom window sobbing— as limb by limb my childhood began to unravel. Unable to understand how a fate so cruel could fall upon something so beautiful. The poppies, the daffodils and the dogwood all followed. Until our acre of paradise returned to the place they were born.

Empty condos would soon rise from their ashes.

Our house remained. But she wasn’t home anymore. I’m surprised she survived at all. I watched her cling desperately to her roots, and heard her moans— as she was ripped from her foundation and carried forward on our land to be placed on new footing. A place she was never meant to rest. I felt her pain. I didn’t belong in this new spot either. I belonged underneath the arms of my cherry tree.

* * * * *

My Father named his dream venture “Harmony Lane”. A new style of housing, built ahead of its time. And resting on the embers of my childhood. There was nothing harmonious about it. Houses aren’t meant to be picked up and thrown about. Every wall of our home was cracked and the ceiling began to cave. As did my Fathers business venture. Neither the house, or our family would recover.

It was 1986. Seven years of childhood perfection, bottled up in my heart. And then we were poor. No more reaching up for grapes off the vine, or collecting hazelnuts beneath my naked feet.

No.

Now, I would sit and wait. Looking toward the sky once again. The same stars greeting me, in this foreign place. I should have been swinging. Letting my toes sweep the grass. Yet there I sat, in the bottom of an empty dumpster of a wood cutting factory. A thief in the night. My 8 year old hands shaking from the cold, and from the fear. Anticipating the chirps of a rusty overhead conveyor belt, that would signal wood was on its way. The discarded spindles of lumber made their way to my feet, and I would toss them to my Mother. We stayed until the car was full. And there was enough wood in the bin for me to climb back out. The ride home quiet, cramped and miserably long. My nose filled with sawdust. It was the only way we could stay warm now. And I grew to dread winter.

* * * * *

She saw more than I can imagine. Entire lives unfolded before her, in the 70 years before we met. Yet she was the first sign of home to greet me, as my Mother carried me wrapped in her arms, across her threshold. She saw my first steps. My first kiss. She witnessed the birth and death of my family. And later, my own babies would return and admire her. Blissfully unaware of the secrets she kept. Our beautiful front door.

The house would not survive. After 105 years of fighting to stand, a broken pipe flooded her beyond repair. Her walls would once again crumble. I stood with my children, and watched the bread crumbs of my childhood take one final bow. No clinging to these roots, that were never hers. No cries of resistance. Just an eerily quiet acceptance of a fate that was already written.

One piece at a time, she began to kneel. The stairs where I would sit and laugh with friends. My bedroom window, where I would dream of another life. The porch where I danced, I cried, I set out from— to seek my own future. All returned to dust in the wind. But the front door… she was saved. From my dreams she calls for me to claim her. To wake her from her slumber. Announcing winters end.

* * * * *

I come from a place that no longer exists. Home is not bricks and mortar. Home is the place my heart resides. It is the falling of small feet, a little too loudly. The smell of cookies left in the oven a little too long. The laughter of my children as they swing barefoot, beneath our oak tree. Sweeping their naked feet along blades of grass. And when the time is right… I will collect the last remaining piece of my own childhood, and bring her home. I will brush the dust from her eyes, and stand her tall— to be admired for another hundred years.

She will feel the wind. The rain. The sun. And she will know how these tiny feet have grown.

That is my dream.