THREE KITTENS ARRIVED next door with tiny bells on their necks and I can hear them twinkling as they slither through the rose bushes out front.
A few mornings ago, I sat on the porch in a patch of delicious sunlight eating a cup of yogurt when the gray one saddled up next to me for a cuddle. I usually don’t love cats but this one’s cuteness was hard to resist and I enjoyed watching him enjoy licking the inside of the yogurt cup, sealing our neighborly bond.
As the two of us were getting to know each other—and the two other kitty siblings looked on with a bit more fear in their eyes from behind a tree—two women walked past the house. They were talking in loud voices and the younger one was holding the phone up to her face, trying to read directions on a map. I heard one argue with the other that they were going the wrong way.
What on earth was this? It was a Tuesday, I’m laid off, I’ve got nothing but time on my hands these days, so I ventured to ask them what they were looking for on the block I’d lived on my entire life. The younger one cooed at the kitten, breaking the ice, and turning us all into fast friends after a minute or so. The older woman explained that she’d lived on this block as a kid and had come to sit on the porch of her old house—next door to mine—where the kittens now live.
“She has breast cancer!” the younger one blurted.
It turns out they were mother and daughter on their way to a doctor’s appointment at a cancer treatment center nearby. I tried to say I’m sorry to hear that but the woman had that glazed look of nostalgia coursing through her and all she could think about was her childhood home.
Barefoot, I walked across the grass with them to ring the bell, thinking maybe my neighbors would be home to let them peek inside—no one answered. So the woman sat on the steps and announced that this is where she sat when she was six and waited for her dad to come home—tears welling up in her eyes—and her daughter and I tried to console her but she was not with us anymore but rather in some faraway place, living out an entirely different timeline.
It turns out she attended the same elementary school as me—but twenty years prior—and when I told her I had fond memories of the place, she cried out “bad experience there!” She hated that school because her second grade teacher scolded her for using her left hand—back in those days it was a sign that the child had been possessed by the devil—and again I tried to commiserate, “I’m left-handed too!”
But to no avail, this woman wasn’t seeking connection with some disheveled fifty-year-old woman in leopard print pants and a black sweatshirt, sitting on the porch of a home packed with childhood memories of her own—she was there to walk back into a time when she felt safe, healthy, and young, regaling me with tales about how all her neighbors passed out cookies to all the kids on this street.
The Arcadia kids I grew up with also have fond memories of this block—the trees are fuller and more canopied than ever, creating a sense of depth and time—and all of us looked out for each other, even in the eighties when most of our parents were working or single or in some sort of marital crisis or other. I didn’t know any of the women this person was recalling from the 1960s, when she was growing up, but I had my Mary and I had my Micky and I had my Phyllis and I had my Natalie.
The women on this block had been through it all and lived to tell about it. I always like to remind people that it was Micky who taught me how to use a baton and lift my knees right to march in a parade. I’m sad that she died and I never got to say goodbye and now all the aloe plants that used to press against her front windows are gone—or hidden behind new white curtains.
I had to go, I told the mother and daughter team on their way to a doctor appointment. I couldn’t keep dipping into the dreamscapes this woman was trekking, and I had to keep track of my own day’s plans. Living in a house full of memories, it takes quite a bit of effort to remain in the present tense. And from the upstairs bedroom where I type this, I can still hear the tiny bells of the kittens playing in the rose bushes our mom planted a long time ago.
A few mornings ago, I sat on the porch in a patch of delicious sunlight eating a cup of yogurt when the gray one saddled up next to me for a cuddle. I usually don’t love cats but this one’s cuteness was hard to resist and I enjoyed watching him enjoy licking the inside of the yogurt cup, sealing our neighborly bond.
As the two of us were getting to know each other—and the two other kitty siblings looked on with a bit more fear in their eyes from behind a tree—two women walked past the house. They were talking in loud voices and the younger one was holding the phone up to her face, trying to read directions on a map. I heard one argue with the other that they were going the wrong way.
What on earth was this? It was a Tuesday, I’m laid off, I’ve got nothing but time on my hands these days, so I ventured to ask them what they were looking for on the block I’d lived on my entire life. The younger one cooed at the kitten, breaking the ice, and turning us all into fast friends after a minute or so. The older woman explained that she’d lived on this block as a kid and had come to sit on the porch of her old house—next door to mine—where the kittens now live.
“She has breast cancer!” the younger one blurted.
It turns out they were mother and daughter on their way to a doctor’s appointment at a cancer treatment center nearby. I tried to say I’m sorry to hear that but the woman had that glazed look of nostalgia coursing through her and all she could think about was her childhood home.
Barefoot, I walked across the grass with them to ring the bell, thinking maybe my neighbors would be home to let them peek inside—no one answered. So the woman sat on the steps and announced that this is where she sat when she was six and waited for her dad to come home—tears welling up in her eyes—and her daughter and I tried to console her but she was not with us anymore but rather in some faraway place, living out an entirely different timeline.
It turns out she attended the same elementary school as me—but twenty years prior—and when I told her I had fond memories of the place, she cried out “bad experience there!” She hated that school because her second grade teacher scolded her for using her left hand—back in those days it was a sign that the child had been possessed by the devil—and again I tried to commiserate, “I’m left-handed too!”
But to no avail, this woman wasn’t seeking connection with some disheveled fifty-year-old woman in leopard print pants and a black sweatshirt, sitting on the porch of a home packed with childhood memories of her own—she was there to walk back into a time when she felt safe, healthy, and young, regaling me with tales about how all her neighbors passed out cookies to all the kids on this street.
The Arcadia kids I grew up with also have fond memories of this block—the trees are fuller and more canopied than ever, creating a sense of depth and time—and all of us looked out for each other, even in the eighties when most of our parents were working or single or in some sort of marital crisis or other. I didn’t know any of the women this person was recalling from the 1960s, when she was growing up, but I had my Mary and I had my Micky and I had my Phyllis and I had my Natalie.
The women on this block had been through it all and lived to tell about it. I always like to remind people that it was Micky who taught me how to use a baton and lift my knees right to march in a parade. I’m sad that she died and I never got to say goodbye and now all the aloe plants that used to press against her front windows are gone—or hidden behind new white curtains.
I had to go, I told the mother and daughter team on their way to a doctor appointment. I couldn’t keep dipping into the dreamscapes this woman was trekking, and I had to keep track of my own day’s plans. Living in a house full of memories, it takes quite a bit of effort to remain in the present tense. And from the upstairs bedroom where I type this, I can still hear the tiny bells of the kittens playing in the rose bushes our mom planted a long time ago.
