I sat down to try to put into words my feelings about the
place I called home from the ages of 9-23. The following is the result. If you
have ever been inside of our beautiful home I believe you will enjoy how I have
seen it transform over the years, and understand my appreciation and love for
the house.
Homage to 129 Night Owl Court
It is hot, a kind of heat I had never felt before, a humid,
sticky, stubborn heat. The kind of heat that sucks the energy out of you and
makes you exhausted just standing in it. It is the kind of heat that makes air
conditioning priceless and sweat stains ordinary. It is a good old Florida
summer.
I am sitting in our red Suburban, enjoying the priceless
invention of chilled air, heading to our new house. A house we have bought but
can’t move into because it is full of construction workers, painters, plumbers,
dustsheets, ladders, and tools. We drive through the open gate into the Island.
Well it is not technically an island; it is not surrounded by water. In fact it
isn’t even a peninsula, nor does it have a coastline. We coast past the tennis
court, right at the stop sign, and left onto Night Owl Court. Not Knight Owl, I
don’t know what a Knight Owl is. We park in front of the shrub covered mailbox,
walk past the wooden white picket fence and step into the bare, echoing house.
I sit on the brick fireplace in the large, white-walled
central room and do my English homework, 4th grade spelling words.
As I finish my homework the workers leave. I walk to the stairs, the main wooden
staircase, not the secret carpet stairs. I begin climbing and notice the loud
squeak of the third and fourth steps. As I climb a sketch of a giant statue of
a man with a trident in a garden of fountains and plants appears to my right.
As I approach the top of the steps, I notice a small patch
of paint starting to peel on the corner of the wall, I pull at it to see what
is underneath, just more white wall. Hope nobody notices.
Straight in front of me is Hogwarts. There are stars, wands,
cats, magic hats, Harry Potter posters, beanie babies, and my little sister.
She is lying on her Harry Potter bed sheets with a wand in her hand munching on
pack of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, reading one of the Harry Potter
books while listening to the Harry Potter tapes. She put a perch up outside her
window so the owl could land on it when she turns 11 and refuses to say ‘He Who
Must Not Be Named’s’ name. She is a special little girl.
I turn to my room, with the shaky wooden bunk bed, and the
easy roof access. I alternate between the top and the bottom bunk almost
weekly. When on the bottom bunk sleeping in fear the top mattress would fall on
me, only supported by ten movable wooden planks, or the top bunk, climbing up
in fear that the fan would give me a good smack in the head if I weren’t
careful. There are soccer balls all over the room: soccer ball wall paper,
soccer ball bean bag, and a soccer ball night stand. Those were the days.
I head across the landing, stepping over the spot that
squeaks, into my brothers room. He is playing game boy, Donkey Kong or Pokemon
I believe, sitting on his bunk bed with one leg hooked behind his head
resembling what best can be described as a bizarre nerdy contortionist. He has
a TV in his room, and a computer on the desk. I sit down and play Oregon Trail
and the Logical Journey of the Zoombinis, the best games ever.
I hear a splash and head downstairs. I have a two-step run
pattern for the stairs and haven’t fallen yet, knock on wood. The mural on my
left is completed; it is awesome, awesome like it creates awe. I pass through
the rarely used dining room, snagging a chocolate from the bowl of ‘only for
show’ chocolates and head into the kitchen. The kitchen has wooden floors and a
black table with a leaf in the middle so it can seat all six of us comfortably.
The blast of humid, sticky, stubborn heat hits me as I open
the door to the back porch. She is swimming, she surfs on the boogie board,
chases balls, shakes right next to you when you are dry, and she loves it. This
is the dog, not the sister. If you hold her right above the water she will swim
in the air and if you turn away for a minute she will go dig in the flower beds
and leave muddy paw prints all over the pool deck. Millie likes the pool like
the rest of us.
I turn around and see the ping pong table. I play against my
oldest brother, he always wins. I give up, hit the ball into the pool and run
away before he can catch me. He is slow and hairy. I am great at running into a
room, slamming the door, and locking it before my siblings can catch me. That
or scream for Mom and Dad, either works just fine.
I dart through the laundry room and up the secret carpet
staircase into my brother’s room. That is where the Xbox is, connected to Xbox
live. I play Halo 2. I am good. Lockout with Rockets, try me. I hear Mom
yelling up the stairs; it is time for swim practice. I run up to my room, grab
my Speedo and large green drag suit, and head to the garage. After stepping
over two meowing cats I jump into the green Trailblazer, we are running late,
about seven minutes late if I had to guess.
I drive back from swim practice in my fancy, reliable, 2003
Ford Taurus; it is nice to finally have my license. There is a new code at the
gate, which is now closed during the day. I drive past the tennis court, right
at the stop sign, past a few deer, and left into Night Owl Court. I walk up the
flooded front path the result of one of Florida’s daily summer hurricane-esk
storms, past the gurgle of the fountain in the horny toad and tadpole-invested
pond, and through the front door of the house. I jump the dog gate and head for
the back door to get the dogs outside before the kitchen gets re-flooded with
their uncontrollable happy tinkles. It is a delicate task of ignoring the
excited puppies to avoid a warm golden drizzle across your feet. Which is
lovely by the way when you are wearing sandals.
We head out the garage door, past the one meowing cat, and
into the garage. The raccoon had been in the garage, enjoyed itself to a bowl
full of cat food and delicately washed his paws and face in her water dish, the
little punk. Millie and Heidi book it to the edge of the forest and deliver a
medley of growls and barks to the various species inhabiting the forest and
surrounding areas. Whether it is squirrels, deer, raccoons, possums
(opossums?), bears, lizards, armies of frogs, snakes, foxes, or the occasional
group of wild turkeys, my little guard dogs will bark their heads off at them.
Soon after they go about their business, Millie settling to
relieve herself on the mulch near the old location of the trampoline, before
the mean old insurance company said we needed to get rid of it, and Heidi
choosing a spot next to the giant orange tree that goes for years with no
oranges then springs forty or fifty on us at one time. One can only drink so
much freshly squeezed orange juice so I take a few down and see how far I can
chuck them into the forest. Either the forest is getting smaller because the
neighbors have a new habit of expanding their backyards or my throws are
getting better because I can clear the forest with ease. Maybe it is both.
We walk through the screen door onto the freshly painted,
plant pot covered pool deck. The pool has a water polo ball stuck in a state of
infinite spinning in the fountain that falls from the hot tub. I guess it
cannot be called a hot tub since it has never had a heater, but it is a small
circular tub attached to the pool. Although it is a great pool, it is rarely
used, with most of the house participating in various activities in the Lake
Brantley pool six to seven times a week. As I step onto the back porch, I see
the ping pong table in a new light, the net is down, two triangles of red cups
are set up on either side, this isn’t just a ping pong table, it is a
excruciatingly long, legitimate, beer pong table.
I post up with my back to the door to my parents room,
standing next to my fellow southpaw partner, and win game after game of beer
pong. Team Blazer had a great record and incredible fame that follows us
everywhere. When we finally decide to step away from the party, a decision made
due to the desire to allow other waiting individuals to throw balls into cups
and the fear of developing beer pong elbow (similar to tennis elbow), I walk
through the rarely used porch doors into the family room. I scan the place for
damages, but everything seems in place and calm, with a few red solo cups
scattered around the room. I head towards the kitchen and do a double take as I
pass the dog’s bathroom. A young, British friend of mine has found his usual
pass-out location, curled up on the dog’s bed in the fetal position. Such
innocence, I begin looking for a permanent marker.
The kitchen is different, the floors are now cold stone, the
counters are shiny black granite, pebbles have been jammed into the walls above
the counters, pots are hanging from the ceiling, and the walls have changed
colors. Mama Lee, our in-house interior decorator has made the wonderful
transformation. The black kitchen table is smaller, with a leaf taken out of
the middle. There isn’t much use for a big table when there are only four of us
living here.
I hear music and head to the bonus room. There is a distinct
smell as I approach the top of the steps. A group of friends are sitting on the
black bunk bed/futon listening to music and talking. I become light headed as
the room changes in front of me, I stare at the computer chair and see flashes
of people spinning around in it: friend, brother, girlfriend, friend, brother,
friend, sister, friend, father, friend, friend, friend. The Xbox lays unused in
the corner, and the air hockey table disappears to leave a patch of white
carpet.
I walk downstairs disoriented, pictures on the walls begin
fade. I get to work, I am taking things off the walls and unscrewing the screws
left behind, leaving a trail of holes in the middle of blank spaces. I walk
into the dining room and step over the dog gate to find a strange man wrapping
my parent’s crystal wedding presents in paper and gently placing them in a large
cardboard box.
I head up the stairs towards my room, but it isn’t my room,
it is the upstairs sitting room. I head down the landing to my new room and
walk into a full suitcase on the floor. My large bed with denim sheets is
stripped, my closet is almost empty, my various artifacts I attained during my
travels are in a sloppy pile in the corner. I head back to the stairs and see
that Hogwarts is gone. Even the new and oh so mature Audrey Hepburn posters
have been taken down. The furniture from the room is gone, thrown into a budget
truck and professionally driven to New York without hitting even one bridge.
I jog down the stairs and see the emptying family room,
living room, and back porch. The house is full of workers, packing up boxes,
constructing crates for the delicate items, and checking the house one last
time for mold or termites. The dogs are more emotional than I am, their home is
being taken down around them - my home is being taken down around me. They have
been so distressed they had to be put on doggie Prozac. No one asked me if I
needed doggie Prozac.
I walk outside and get into my packed Toyota Corolla, trying
to take in the house one last time. The house looks the same, but through the
windows I can see a flurry of packing and cleaning. My home is being gutted,
returning to the empty, worker-filled echoing house that I was first presented
with when I was nine.
I reverse, careful not to hit the fence one last time, and
see our cat sleeping in a patch of sunlight. Something disturbs her and she
begins a struggle to get to her feet, after a few seconds she gets up, walks
past the pond, and with a flick of the tail she disappears around the side of
the house, toward where we buried her sister many years ago. Rest in Peace
Moppet and Mittens, the sweetest cats ever.
Goodbye 129 Night Owl Court
Goodbye Sweetwater Island
Goodbye Longwood
Goodbye Florida
Hasta Luego!
