Saturday, April 30, 2005
Angel won't you call me, though I am a lost cause?
You can burn bridges, but somebody's going to rebuild that shit.
Fifth grade taught me that. When I was about ten my family moved to a tiny suburban neighborhood called Port St. John. It was a neighborhood built around the space industry. Everyone's parents worked for NASA, or some company under NASA, my mother included.
She and my stepfather bought this house, the first house I ever really lived in, other than when we lived with my grandparents for a while when we were real little. The first house that was ours.
That Christmas Santa Claus brought me a bike. My sister too. It was an awesome bike. We used to ride to school, just about a half-mile away. Atantis Elementary. A brand new school. Named after a shuttle of course. The neighboring elementary school was called Challenger. If I had gone to Titusville High School, instead of moving to Texas a few years later, my rival football team would have been Astronaut High School's.
I remember long summers, and riding our bikes to a ball park a couple miles away. At the nearby convenience store we'd buy candy and Snapple. Sometimes we'd get Tonguesplashers gum. Remember that stuff? Used to turn your whole mouth blue inside. It was the coolest.
The neighborhood wasn't finished. I'm sure it is much more crowded now. But just next to our school, in the woods, was our sanctuary. My sister Renee and I would cut through this trail cut out from the sidewalk, probably by kids, and cross this bridge into our imaginary lives. I remember this huge hill. Kind of like a valley. Covered with fallen leaves. Someone had tied a rope to a tree. We'd get on one side, let out a scream, and dive down, holding the rope, swinging all the way across the dip. It was the greatest.
And if we walked a little further into the woods, we came to our fort. I don't remember how we found it, but we made it ours. We'd climb this ladder made out of boards into the trees. We had two pliewood floors that we'd covered with extra pieces of linoleum we'd found. We had flowers to decorate, and a bucket tied to a neighboring limb we would send to each other up and down for supplies.
Sometimes when we'd go to our fort, the bridge leading to it would be destroyed. So you know what we would do? We'd fix it. Every single time. We'd rebuild it ourselves. Over and over. Put it back in place right as it had been.
Same thing with our fort. Sometimes we'd return to it to find it had been vandalized, or that our wood had been stolen. It might have been the neighborhood boys being jerks. But you know what we would do? We would rebuild it. Better and better. More wood. More decorations. It was the girliest treehouse ever, especially for a couple girls manly enough to build bridges and floors, fall down and scrape their knees on pavement and get up again. My sister had a skateboard even.
For some reason that came to mind. 'Cause I was just thinking about bridges. People say not to burn bridges because that is the end of things. But sometimes it's not the end at all. Sometimes it's the beginning of something else. Or sometimes a force bigger than your own or anyone's can bring it right back.
Sometimes I want to hug that force. Sometimes I want to punch it in the face and yell, "Fuck Right OFF!"
Other times I don't know what to do with it, except write about it. Fucking emo.
You can burn bridges, but somebody's going to rebuild that shit.
Fifth grade taught me that. When I was about ten my family moved to a tiny suburban neighborhood called Port St. John. It was a neighborhood built around the space industry. Everyone's parents worked for NASA, or some company under NASA, my mother included.
She and my stepfather bought this house, the first house I ever really lived in, other than when we lived with my grandparents for a while when we were real little. The first house that was ours.
That Christmas Santa Claus brought me a bike. My sister too. It was an awesome bike. We used to ride to school, just about a half-mile away. Atantis Elementary. A brand new school. Named after a shuttle of course. The neighboring elementary school was called Challenger. If I had gone to Titusville High School, instead of moving to Texas a few years later, my rival football team would have been Astronaut High School's.
I remember long summers, and riding our bikes to a ball park a couple miles away. At the nearby convenience store we'd buy candy and Snapple. Sometimes we'd get Tonguesplashers gum. Remember that stuff? Used to turn your whole mouth blue inside. It was the coolest.
The neighborhood wasn't finished. I'm sure it is much more crowded now. But just next to our school, in the woods, was our sanctuary. My sister Renee and I would cut through this trail cut out from the sidewalk, probably by kids, and cross this bridge into our imaginary lives. I remember this huge hill. Kind of like a valley. Covered with fallen leaves. Someone had tied a rope to a tree. We'd get on one side, let out a scream, and dive down, holding the rope, swinging all the way across the dip. It was the greatest.
And if we walked a little further into the woods, we came to our fort. I don't remember how we found it, but we made it ours. We'd climb this ladder made out of boards into the trees. We had two pliewood floors that we'd covered with extra pieces of linoleum we'd found. We had flowers to decorate, and a bucket tied to a neighboring limb we would send to each other up and down for supplies.
Sometimes when we'd go to our fort, the bridge leading to it would be destroyed. So you know what we would do? We'd fix it. Every single time. We'd rebuild it ourselves. Over and over. Put it back in place right as it had been.
Same thing with our fort. Sometimes we'd return to it to find it had been vandalized, or that our wood had been stolen. It might have been the neighborhood boys being jerks. But you know what we would do? We would rebuild it. Better and better. More wood. More decorations. It was the girliest treehouse ever, especially for a couple girls manly enough to build bridges and floors, fall down and scrape their knees on pavement and get up again. My sister had a skateboard even.
For some reason that came to mind. 'Cause I was just thinking about bridges. People say not to burn bridges because that is the end of things. But sometimes it's not the end at all. Sometimes it's the beginning of something else. Or sometimes a force bigger than your own or anyone's can bring it right back.
Sometimes I want to hug that force. Sometimes I want to punch it in the face and yell, "Fuck Right OFF!"
Other times I don't know what to do with it, except write about it. Fucking emo.
1 Comments:
*covers mouth with hand, intrigued*
By 
, at
12:18 AM
