Landscape

            As a child, I always longingly awaited the end of the school year and the beginning of summer vacation.  I didn’t dislike school.  On the contrary, I excelled at it.  I enjoyed playing kickball in the oversized parking lot of our small private school, running and tripping with my friends over the deep cracks that ran through the faded yellow-lined asphalt; I was fond of walking in large groups across the same parking lot to the church auditorium and sitting on the gold cushioned pews below the giant wooden rafters above during our weekly chapel services; and I loved sitting in the back of the cold, wood-paneled classroom absorbed in some book to the point that I was oblivious to what my friends were doing around me.  My anticipation for the summer break stemmed rather from my inability to embrace the home in which I grew up than any dislike that I may have had of school.

            My father was often absent physically and my mother seemed to become absent emotionally as soon as we passed through the large dilapidated wooden door of our home.  The house was a presence in my childhood that seemed to have a persona of its own.  The house was my enemy.  It hated me, and I hated it.  From the road, it looked like a monster, lurking at the bottom of a rocky hill.  The dark front door with its elaborately carved scroll panels and scaly chipped paint in conjunction with the olive green stain that had been applied to the wood siding and the windows that resembled vacant eyes as a result of the white curtains that always remained drawn and had developed mildew stains from being pressed against the damp glass contributed to the ominous effect of the house.

            Once inside, the home was no better–dark brown linoleum, dark green shag carpet, massive black banisters running up and down the stairs.  Dimly lit gothic light fixtures hung from the cathedral ceilings, and a large stone fireplace that dominated the dreary basement.  In addition to the innate gloominess of the house, it was also in a state of complete neglect.  From my earliest childhood, neither of my parents cleaned.  No repairs were made.  The house was filled with dust and stacks of old mementos from my parents’ lives before my existence.  My mother was incapable of letting anything go that reminded her of the failing relationship she had with my father; and in addition to these keepsakes, she had begun hording souvenirs from my life.  My crib remained assembled and became a place in which to store old baby clothes that were too painful for her to pack up or give away.  Toys that I had outgrown remained on their shelves, dusty and faded.  The carpet was not vacuumed and the floors were not swept.  The house was dismal and left me feeling disconnected from the normalcy that I experienced at school with my friends.   

            It was easier for me, as a child, to transform our home into a type of monster that was responsible for the failures of my family rather than recognizing the flaws of my own parents.  Instead of seeing my father’s constant absence as a result of his infidelity, I decided that the state of the house was driving him away.  Instead of acknowledging the existence of my mother’s struggle with depression and disillusionment, I chose to see the house as some being that was somehow destroying her ability to function.  I despised our home, and I dreaded the time I was forced to spend there.  I longed for the summers and the respite I was granted while spending them with my grandparents.  I constantly longed for the home that was so different from mine.