Places

We drive by St. Mary's football field, and Hoskin Meyers floral shop. A little brown house sits on the opposite curb. My mom points to it, "That is one of the places I grew up." She says she remembers the breezeway and backyard. And the house behind theirs, the "castle," she calls it.

My grandma talks about her old house as if it were a castle. It stood tall on a hill, she says. And you could look outside through these huge windows and see al the city lights. And her brother and sisters and herself would roll and do cartwheels down the hill in their backyard. She loved that house.

And then there is me. I think it is the church bells, ringing every morning, and the train, roaring by every night that I love. And the trees, tall pines, looming beside the red fence, now turning a mossy green, with the sun shining through their branches in the early morning. They shelter us in the winter snow, and are an airy tunnel in the summer months. Beside the pines is an apple tree, blooming every spring, and giving us big red apples for homeade applebars come fall. Lastly is our weeping willow tree, solitary in our front yard. It is dying. But still their.

The arches in our basement and little "boxcar" room, hidden underneath the staircase, I like them. Our red-pink, lime green, purple, lavendar, light blue, and yellow-orange walls are crazy, but fun and beautiful, like life.

I know I love my house, and my mom and grandma, they loved theirs.

So us people, we can love places and colors and sounds. We live to explore, but call one place home. This place brings back memories, and those to come. And that is where I am. In my house, or hiding among our trees. That is where you will find me.