I grew up in a little town of Washington
called Kalama.
It really wasn’t too little,
just small enough
that when you drove by on the freeway,
you could blink
and miss the whole urban part of it.
Downtown at the time was just
a gas station with burgers,
a church with preschool,
and two schools;
Kindergarten through 8th grade
and the High school.
The rest of Kalama
was acres and acres
of forestland
of fields
and tall hills.
On top of one hill
was a big
three story high
Cedar House.
That one
was mine.
Our backyard was a field
of tall wavy grass.
Behind it
was a forest,
40 acres thick
of rich evergreen trees.
And most houses these days
have views of the home across from them,
but for our view,
if you stood
at the top of the hill
you could see
the majestic Columbia River
flowing
from the Pacific into Washington.
It was the best view in Kalama,
and we had one of the most beautiful homes
of Kalama too.
In our home lived five people.
My sister Madison,
who loved the neighbor’s horses.
My baby brother who would pester our dog,
Lucy, who’d fight bears in the forest
with her sidekick,
Sunny, our cat.
There were also Mom and Daddy,
and of course,
Me,
who liked to chase the chickens
trying to catch dinner.
Now, why would we live here?
Daddy wanted his kids
to live in the country
just as he did as a kid,
but Mom was always on the verge
of insanity
because she couldn’t take the
bugs and wild critters.
But I loved the bugs
that would coat the exterior walls of the house
in the summer.
I loved how the wild animals
ran free across our property;
anything from
little mice, masked *****, and elegant deer,
to hungry coyotes, fat bears, and free horses.
I loved everything about that place.
And there was one thing
that I still remember
and still love
a decade later.
Daddy would take us outside
some summer nights
to lay on the hill
in the tall grass.
The ground was always
still warm
from the hot afternoon,
it felt like a heating pad
under my little fidgety body.
We would lay there
for hours
gazing at the white brilliant dots
that Daddy liked to call stars,
but I’ve always thought of them as
sky freckles.
There was a way the cool breeze
weaved through the meadow
like my Mom’s fingers running through my hair,
it soothed me.
It’s a feeling I have not yet forgotten.
It’s kept with me for years
and some nights
I’ll step out into the night
and get a little bit of that same sensation,
but it’ll never be the same
as the feeling on that hill.
I have so many memories in Kalama.
Some are kept in me
and some are kept in the grain of the Cedar Wood house,
in the bark of the evergreen,
the blades of the meadow,
everywhere in Kalama.
I wish I could go back
and make more memories.
I miss the small creek
that Daddy made for us.
I miss the muddy trails,
running barefoot through them.
I miss the fuzzy black and orange caterpillars
that’d **** on my hand.
I miss
the forest,
the field,
the wild animals,
my room in the attic,
and how beautiful the stars would look at night..
But Mom couldn’t take the country life anymore.
She made Daddy and us kids move
to the city, Vancouver.
It’s fine here;
people are nice,
I’ve made some great friends
that I won’t ever forget,
and I’ve had many
fun and life-changing opportunities.
It’s just that I don’t feel like I belong.
I don’t know how to explain it other than
You can take a girl out of home,
but you can’t take the home out of a girl.
And Kalama,
will always and forever be
my true home.