Today, I took a short cut through a long memory.  At the last minute I turned left at the light, thinking I would avoid the heavy afternoon traffic and face a piece of my past.

I drove down the hill, Southland Park and the swimming pool to my right. The hot, humid day brought out the summer vacation crowds.  Bright towels and small swimsuits dotted the chain-link pool area.  SUVs and vans packed the parking lot and lined the narrow side streets.  My family and I used to walk to the pool to cool off, and then reheat on the way back home.

Returning my eyes to the road, I caught a glimpse of a stop sign as it passed the top right corner of my car’s windshield — that three-way stop didn’t used to be there!  I stomped the brake but it was too late to make a complete stop.  Gripping the steering wheel, I looked for flashing blue and red lights in my rear view mirror.  I seemed to be safe.  Glancing back to the road in front of me, I realized I was quickly approaching a v-painted speed hump.  Did I no longer know my old neighborhood?  I slowed down as much as I could with such short notice and bounced my car over the bump.

It was quite apparent that I needed to watch the road and its new hazards, or safety features, with more care.  I abandoned reminiscing until our old house appeared at the end of the street.

I pulled up to the stop sign and noted my former yard’s overgrown state; tall grass and buckhorn heads reaching toward the clouds, gnarled shrubs and gangly flowers random across the yard.  I must admit that I still hold a grudge that the new owners pulled up the China Girl and China Boy holly shrubs and replaced them with Elephant Ears.  I mulched, trimmed and nursed those shrubs from near infancy to four feet and then they were ejected for Elephant Ears?  My many years of landscaping and labor had mostly vanished. I know that I need to let go of that, just like I need to let go of several other things.  I’m working on it.

A trash can sat at the end of the driveway, almost in the street, with a hand scrawled yard sale sign duct taped to the lid.  For a short second, I considered attending, but made the right turn and glanced back as I drove off.

It was the white electric guitar at the far end of the driveway that caught my eye, making me reconsider.  Electric guitars run deep in my family – my son plays one and his dad did, too.  If I could muster the nerve to revisit my past, perhaps I could strike a deal, or maybe soften painful memories when I last walked away from that house.

I turned the car around and parked in front of my old home.  I walked up the incline of the driveway, passing by memorabilia and lamps, cast-off gadgets and old paint buckets;  where years ago we loaded Sentras and Cherokees for work, vacations, and sports.  I realized the white electric guitar that lured me was a kid’s toy instrument.  The basketball goal stood with no backboard, needling me about another one of my projects unfinished.

Between stacks of old computer monitors and keyboards on a red metal table, I could see the concrete block wall that our neighbor, William, had laid.  The new wall was cracking and bulging, like the original red-painted wall.  The massive flow of rainwater from the back apparently continues to push against the house and wall.  Beyond a hunter green recliner and an unsteady bookshelf half-full of unknown titles, unfamiliar cracks stair-stepped the house’s brick exterior.  That was no surprise, the house seemed to always be on the move.

On the jamb of the spattered and grimy garage door was the keypad.  I had forgotten that I had that installed — one more useless attempt to create safety at a time when I could find none.  After my husband died I was hyper-vigilant about security, but no matter what I had installed, updated, taken out, I still felt vulnerable within my unstable world.   Everything I knew had changed, everything had crashed, including myself.  I checked out from my emotions, from people, from life.  I was standing on my old driveway, in my personal ground zero.

My hands shook as I reached for my phone, checking the time, messages, anything.  Heaviness in my chest shallowed, shortened my breath.  The pressing heat became unbearable.  This once familiar land was mine no more.  I could not claim even a piece of it.  I turned to walk back to my car, to run, escape, where maybe air conditioning and music would distract my unrest.

The homeowner, shirtless with short-cropped dark hair, swaggering blue jeans, walked down the front steps.  The same steps that I had carried my infant son up and later rushed behind him on the way to tee ball; the steps that our elderly parents cautiously scaled and those that my husband’s bagged body was carried down.

The man plopped down on a lower step and we chatted about the extreme heat.  I strained for breath, I felt miles and years away from that driveway, from that conversation.  I considered telling the owner that I had lived there before.  I wondered if I would tour the house, if he offered, and if I could even enter that green front door.  I imagined soaking in the memory of my days and years there, to see the nursery, to stand where my husband was lying when he died.  But over the years the trips to the cemetery have taught me that I can find no real comfort in visiting monuments to the past.

Fearing the homeowner’s complaints about the leaking basement and the occasional creek running across the back and side yards, but mostly to avoid further explanation, I chose to remain anonymous.  I told him goodbye and for the last time, I walked down the driveway, saying my own private goodbyes.  This time, I’m thankful to be walking away.