I’m almost never in the position to let the curiosity and memories control me But when I am, it takes everything I have not to drive by for my own contentment just to see. My tired body has moved on but my mind is still upstairs and straight-down-the-hall cutting pictures out of magazines splicing them together in pages of notebooks and aching for what I have today.
Things sound different now. Fire trucks and shouting neighbors kids playing on front lawns. I don’t walk out of my back door to my own personal jungle, I don’t hold my breath to feel the stillness and let the hushed air envelop me. I’m not careless and flying on the seat of my swing set that my parents tore down while I was away at college. But I can still step outside and feel the same heat and I can still feel the same weight on my chest and the birds go on chirping like before.