Continuity

I am struck sometimes about the continuity of my life as it is now. These thoughts are prompted by the late afternoon sun slanting at the very same angle it did when I was a small child. I view it from the same seat; the chair is different, the table also, the children running in the gold light are mine own now, but still, it all feels so familiar. Because it is.

This is the same home I grew up in, I just saw the mildly retarded woman in our neighborhood on her scooter, moving through the light...she is the same one that used to ride a bike and one morning as I biked to school in the early foggy day we came head to head, our bikes colliding, me into the street and biting right through that thin spot under my lip from the crash and she frightened and befuddled and then my brothers ushered me into the school office with a white collared shirt stained with blood and it was all okay. Now my brother owns a home one street over from where the crash happened and she still rides the neighborhood, now from a comfortable motorized seat and I still love seeing her and remembering that morning.

It was not the plan, you know? To return to my town of origin, have my children in the same home I grew in, put them down every night to sleep in the room I once drifted into my own childhood oblivion. I did things in that room that make me blush now when I recall, some of them not with my now husband. And I watch as this home reincarnates itself over and over, first to accommodate 4 then 5 then 6 then 10 then back down now to 7, you get the idea.

(taken 'at work' today)
There is something so comfortable about it all. I thought it would make me feel constricted and pained, that I would feel as if I have done not enough, not proved my worth. Instead I spend my days moving about and through it, occasionally frustrated by the eternal mess and undone doorways, but most often embracng the light and the continuity of it all.

I just saw a patient that lived next door to my husband as he was growing up, her grandchildren and grandnephews played with him in the small leftover orchard of orange trees behind their joined yards. We talked of the time she has spent here, in her home, we laughed about it. And then I took a short drive north into a canyon just above our home. It was ravaged by fire in 2004 and only four homes are left. Homes built by hand, by folks who like to be just a little bit removed from the norm. The notes on her computerized patient chart cautioned me to look in the trees for cougars if I visited in the early morning or late afternoon. These are my stomping ground.

My formative years shaped by the gentle upslope and canyon breezes and me tromping silly and drunk through the parks where I now take my kids to play. I still remember being in those same parks with my mama and wondering what those big kids were doing, over there on the park tables, slumped over, trying to hide something. And now I giggle just a little when I see those same kids when we are there, remembering when I became one of them. Knowing now someday my kids might be them too.

I love my home. A quiet passion. I always have designs to leave, my Mondo dreams made that awfully clear. But it is only because I know I have somewhere to come back to. So solid, a rock, a place to call mine own. It will be here, flowers blooming, bulbs planted years ago coming forth when they receive enough rain to flourish. It will be here as it is, home. Nothing special. Ranch style, 1450 square feet of square rooms and beautiful foothill light. There was no grand architect, no special planning, no gate to get in. Just a cul-de-sac and a small home. But it holds all that is dear to me, all that is good and beautiful. I leave because I can always come back. Always have been able to, and I always have.

That is continuity.