THE SEARCH FOR COMMUNITY
Have you ever heard the hollow sound of leaving a house? Empty, it is left as it was found, without a trace of someone coming back. The indentations in the carpet show ghosts of the furniture. The nail hole dotted empty walls remember everyone’s conversations. The memories of important moments just hover there and remain in the echo. When you close the door and leave a home, where do you belong? My mother would unfold the Sunday paper, like performing a ritual, and scan the rental columns through her glasses perched at the end of her nose. Sometimes she used my stepdad’s but she would always see things through rose colored lenses when seeing life in the next place. As though all prevailing problems would be left behind with the final sweeping. I learned to stifle the loss of friends and familiarity. Eventually the act of leaving transitioned into the anticipation of starting again someplace new. In each new school I would enter the social activities for my appropriate age groups like Girl Scouts, drama clubs, and after school sports teams. Rarely staying long enough to become a contributing member or develop close friendships, I existed in a state of waiting for that looming abrupt exit. I was an outsider just passin’ through. I recall one teacher’s comment on a report card that said even though I had only been in attendance for six weeks, I had been a positive addition to the class. She had chosen words of monumental validation.
