My
husband and I are moving house,
sort of. Maybe.
But maybe not.
For who
can move away
from 35
years of living?
What crate
do you pack all your memories in?
How many
boxes does it take
to hold
a life?
A marriage?
A
family?
This old
house is only a place,
but it’s
the place
where so
much
of your
life happened.
This new
place does not have the spot
where
your son took his first steps
or the
spot where your daughter
lost her
first tooth.
It doesn’t
have the place on the stairs
where your
children sat
when you
overheard
your
daughter asking your son to play Barbies
and your
son answering
that he
would,
for a
quarter.
This new
place does not have
the hallway you walked
all those nights
when the
babies wouldn’t sleep,
or the
spot where you stood
when you
learned of
the attack
on the World Trade Center,
or the door
your husband walked through
when he
brought home the stray dog
who
became a part of the family.
It does
not have the sunroom
where
you slept every night
while recovering
from knee surgery
and you
couldn’t walk
up the
stairs to the bedroom,
the sunroom
where you sit
every morning
writing and
reading
with
your dog and your cat and your coffee.
And now
you are old,
and
there isn’t enough of you left,
of your
life left,
to make
all the new memories
that
will transform another house
into a
home,
into
your home.
