The town house

Sometime around the time that I started first grade we moved into a town house one city over from mine. The town house was nice, it was no Ashland, but it was nice. There were two bedrooms upstairs and a den where my step brother and step sister slept when they were visiting which was every weekend, holiday and all summer long. My mom and Steve slept down stairs with baby Elly. Now, I can't tell you much about the town house. I was never there, to be honest. What I can tell you about though was the swamp.

The swamp was probably not a swamp at all. It was an area toward the end of the road, blocked off with a do not enter sign. Nearly every day my siblings and I (minus baby Elly who just jumped in her Johnny jumper all day long) would decide we were going to the swamp. The swamp was our place. Every kid had one, I had a lot over the years, but this was my first. With in the first few weeks, we had named every puddle, road and landmark in the swamp. I use the term we loosely. I was the youngest one, I didn't get to name anything. Still, it was our place.

I wish I could give an example of all the amazing things that we did there, but I don't recall. We mostly just spent hours doing nothing, walking along paths, talking, running. At the end of the day, we'd exit through the back where a tire swing hung on a tree, and we'd swing for another hour or so before we had to be home for dinner. We always had to be home for dinner. If we were late, it meant no dinner and standing in the corner until bed time. That stuff didn't matter in the swamp though. It was a place where kids could just be kids.

We didn't right in the swamp, not that I recall. We didn't go running home to tell on each other. The swamp was a place where we could all just love each other for a moment before we went back home to chaos. I wish I had an exciting story to tell about the town house, but that was it. I moved into the town house just before I started first grade. One day I came home and there was a moving van outside. I don't know how long we lived there, but I know that my mom drove me to my same school for a while longer before they discovered we lived out of district and sent us back to the school I went to for kindergarten. I spent one half of the school year at that other school. By Christmas time we lived with my grandma. We couldn't have lived there more than four or five months.

Dear town house,

I didn't realize until now just how little time I spent with you. I always told myself it was six months, but I guess it wasn't even that. I think the only reason you stand out in my memories of all that houses we lived in, some of which I can't recall, is because of the swamp. I think that was the first place I ever felt at home.

Love,

Robin, if you even remember me