Giving Thanks

My brain is a house that's haunted by memories.

No matter how much I'd like to think I'm moving forward, there's always a part of me that's looking back. It's like unplanned time travel. I smell bleach and suddenly I'm fourteen, cleaning out ice cream bins at the flea market. I get an email from an old friend and all I can think about is how I slapped her on the school bus the week before I moved away. Or the way bagpipes remind me of weddings and medicine balls like fifth grade gym class. These memories slip in and out like friendly/unfriendly ghosts. Yesterday at lunch I drove to my house to shut off the breakers. "I'm over this," I thought, killing the switch. But no matter how over it I am...

It's not quite over me.

The concrete slab in the side yard? That's where Hoop and I huddled under blankets to smoke. It's where we fought, and kissed, and made plans for the future. The lone swamp Oak outside? I tied peanut butter coated pine cones to its branches one year for Beltane. I passed up a perfectly good offer on the house simply because the buyers wanted to cut it down and build a garage. "Surely there's something here that doesn't hold some sort of memory." The guest bedroom? Home to four different roommates. One whose Mother was murdered three months after she moved in. Another who disappeared one day in pursuit of a missing life. The third used tape on the door to see if I'd broken in while she was away. The fourth was her girlfriend, a girl who put cigarettes out on my coffee table and talked in third person.

****
Somewhere beneath this fence post is a slab of cement with my Dad's and my initials on it. We built this fence three years ago with our own hands. It was the last time I saw him sober.


****
The year I moved in, my house was struck by lightning three times in four months. The first two times blew out my telephone line and fried my computer. The third time cracked this once great Pine tree in two. It oozed sap and sawdust for days. For two years it remained, not alive and not quite dead. I fondly nicknamed it "The Lightning Tree." I had it cut down the year the hurricanes rolled through. They asked if I wanted the stump removed. As you see I couldn't let them do it.


So much history! But don't misinterpret this as regret. I'm not sorry to leave. My life has moved beyond the memories that were created in this house. I'm looking forward to the new memories, the ones that always involve Hoop :D. And the couple that's moving in? I hear they're lovely. This will be their first home together. I can't think of a better place to start at. It's just... Now that it's time to go, I'm not sure how to say "Good-Bye."

So instead I'll say "Thank you."


Contest courtesy of Odd Mix:
(Better late than never)

Overcome


Persevere


(Some Random Weekend Pictures)

Hot Air, Cool Night


Ferris Wheel


Attraction To Lights


In Motion


"Bear Affair"

The one in the back looks like he's pooping.

Blur


This weekend's words are Blessing and Thanks.

Around The Water Cooler:
Tink: *Runs into the warehouse*
Supervisor 1: What's wrong?
Tink: I keep hearing voices.
Supervisor 1: In your head?
Tink: No, through the ducts.
Supervisor 2: You have ducks in your office?
Supervisor 1: And they're talking to her.
Supervisor 2: I think we should give her a drug screening.
Tink: The AC ducts you dorks. I hear voices through them and now I'm trying to find out where they're coming from.
Supervisor 1: That's because there's no insulation in the walls.
Supervisor 2: We can hear you in the bathroom.
Tink: You can hear me peeing?!
Supervisor 2: Ew, no. We can hear you talking in our bathroom.
Tink: That's really no better.
Supervisor 1: Yeah, do you mind talking quieter? It makes it hard to concentrate.

Have a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving guys!

PB will be closed tomorrow for the holiday and may or may not return on Friday, depending on how fat I am and if I can reach the keyboard over my belly.