I am me

The woodburning stove has come and gone. The original intention when I first saw that steel firebox was to set it up as some back patio curio. Eventually, we would enclose the space with large windows so as to have a tea room/greenhouse in the winter. The intention that came to be, however, was something else.

It all started with a digital advertisement and the word “Free.” From the pictures online, I examined the stove and thought well enough to go to some stranger’s house and lug this hunk of metal to my home. My initial excitement was followed by curiosity, so I lit a fire to get a sense of how this thing worked. As it turned out, not so well. I fiddled with the baffels and checked the flue collar and so on to give the smoke a direction other than out. I guess that’s why this thing was free. I had nothing more than a metal case that smothered the fire within. And so this thing sat and sat.

Eventually, and for a day, the stove found a purpose. And it was a grey day where the sun is somewhere up there until the clouds that make up the sky grow dark until all is dark save the haze of rain that halos the street lights. And I remember the stillness of that day as I lit a fire in the stove with some wood from one of those projects I sometimes find myself in. And with the stove stoked and piping hot, I proceeded to pitch the artwork that used to hang on the walls of my house into the fire. And the once yellow flames burned blue and green and darker until what choked out of that stove was a syrupy smoke that clung throughout as if to life.

I knew this would happen to some degree, that I would have nothing more than a smothered fire and the smog. But I did it anyway, I think, because I knew I’d be parting with this stove at some point. And I didn’t want those ashes to touch my yard — strange, I know. I didn’t want the remains to linger in my world, which is anywhere I choose to exist: the fields, the mountains, the city — anyplace or anywhere. If I could somehow send these works into space, that distance would still not be enough. Burning them was the only option as if I was trying to sever or sanctify some connection through what this artwork represents.

And yet, despite the heat, there was more smoke than expected. And the smoke didn’t rise. Instead, it clung to the ground as if to seed itself and continue on. And maybe this sacrifice wasn’t so much as refused by god as accepted by the devil — I don’t know if I believe that, but it is fun to ponder such things. And sometimes, it’s not.

My mother gave me those paintings. And they’ve followed from place to place until here: I’ve come to see them as the remnants of some shriveled tentacle that connected us — myself and my mother, that is. But it’s strange getting older and looking back from this adult perspective. And getting older with this constant reflection is traumatizing in a way because I often say, “I am now the age my mother was when I was…” It’s a hell of a perspective in that those weird memories now have the weight of severity and I can call those past situations what they are. And I relive other things that I’m sure she figured I was too young to remember or have nothing to do with her. In truth, it wasn’t only her, not even by a long shot. I still remember the names as if reading a list only for myself. It’s a long list that even has my name.

But there is one thing I often think about, which I know I will never have an answer to. It doesn’t stop me from wondering, though. And so a perpetual question: “What happened? What did I block from my memory that made me so terrified of my bedroom as a child that I would choose to sleep anywhere but in my bedroom?” I’d sleep on the couch or on the floor or behind the couch and on the floor. And one of the safest places for me to sleep was not upstairs in my bedroom, which was adjacent to my parents’ bedroom. Instead, I chose to sleep downstairs and in the hallway with my brother’s door at my head and my sister’s door to my left. There was a time that plot of floor close to my siblings was the safest place in the house. And I slept against their closed doors for a while until it was time to move on.

I don’t know what it was exactly that I experienced at such a tiny age that made me terrified of my bedroom when night came. But whatever it was still haunts me. Even now, if I lay in a bed and the perspective of the door is down and to the left of my feet like it was in childhood, my anxiety spikes. Even now, I become terrified. Even now, as an adult, those living shadows…

But because of my progress, it occurred to me that I should visit the past in order to gain another perspective. Closure, maybe? But to do so, I’d have to work backwards through the different houses and cities and states. And going backward is nothing but a review of immense pain until settling on that childhood home.

And I’d be in front of that house with the long look of silence from the street. Is it really progress to go backwards, I’d think. And in that moment, a car would make the turn but pause before entering the driveway. And the car window would roll down and a woman would be direct in her suspicion: “Excuse me, can I help you?”

And I’d apologize and say that I was just revisiting child-hood memories, that I grew up in that home. And I’d remark about how much everything has changed, about how that major thoroughfare used to be a dirt road, and about how all those houses used to be nothing but forrest and bike paths. And I’d tell her about where the trees used to be on the property and about where the concrete pad in the back yard came from, if it’s still there, and about why that pad is circumscribed with another four inches of concrete padding around the exterior. I’d tell her about the juniper tree in the back and why those limbs on the bottom are shorn off on one side, and that it was my doing in trying to make a bow and arrow. And those strange bumps in the side yard were from the bike jumps. And about how that large pine tree next to the garage has some planking on the high branches because of a half attempted tree fort, and those weird blocks of wood that were nailed into the tree where supposed to be handholds. And I’d tell her about the interior of the house, about the layout and ask if there is still that boot print against the vaulted ceiling in the living room on the upper floor, of if that was painted over. Maybe the thick beam of rough hewn wood still separates the dining room from the living room. And I’d tell her about how when the home was sold, that the wood-burning metal stove in the downstairs wasn’t to code, and that’s why there is a chimney flue to nowhere if it is still visible from inside the garage. And I’d go on and so on with all the memories.

And we’d talk and I’d tell her about the kindergarten I went to, and then the first and second elementary school, and so on. And then she’d say, “It sounds like you had a really happy child hood here. I’m glad we got such a good home.” And I’d look over at her and then in the car to see two children looking up in silence and a bag of groceries beside them. And in the moment I’d remember myself at that age and all the things I would protect myself from had I the chance.

“Yeah,” I’d say. “It was.”