I think we are frightened every
Moment of our lives
Until we
Know
Him
Hafiz
Fire
14 years ago
29 September 2008
15 September 2008
Since I'm feeling nostalgic, an oldie
A New House Stands on Goldenrod
School was finally over, and for the kids of Goldenrod Lane, summertime had never felt sweeter. At nine years old, every inch of my body quivered with the anticipation of summer adventures yet to ensue. My imagination soared boundlessly, a stark contrast to the reality that stretched only so far as my dearly loved backyard and quiet suburban neighborhood. Just minutes had passed since the school bus dropped us off in the cul-de-sac, and the boys were already racing on their bicycles down the big hill at the crown of Goldenrod Lane, shadowed closely by the whispers and giggles of my boy-crazy little sister and her best friend, Brielle. I waited on my front porch steps for Sarah.
Growing up, my backyard was a child’s paradise. It was Goldenrod’s finest, its grassy expanse large enough for neighborhood-wide games of freeze tag, kickball, or hide and seek. The grass was soft and lush, and even the patchy prickly-pear weeds could not deter our bare toes from prancing in its velvety sheen. There was a rickety swingset off to one side, with a lone blue swing, a trapeze bar, and a pair of rings like those that a gymnast would use. On the other side was a miniature sandbox, where countless earthworms were inadvertently unearthed in many a quest to build the perfect sandcastle. But between the swingset and the sandbox was the castle. A wooden tower covered with a weathered yellow tarp, the castle overlooked the backyard and was the gateway to almost every backyard fantasy. But even in all of its royalty, my backyard alone could not satisfy the curiosity that grows with age. That summer, our insatiable appetite for exploration led Sarah and I away from the comforts of our familiar backyard wonderland and into The Woods.
The Woods was the name that the kids of Goldenrod Lane had given to the cluster of trees that occupied the empty lot behind my house. The forefront of The Woods was guarded by a massive oak tree, in which not even boldest of the neighborhood boys had ever dared to climb. The Woods were rarely ventured into, but on that first day of summer, they beckoned to Sarah and me. It was the start of our third summer together, Sarah having instantly become my best friend after moving to my hometown. Our friendship just happened; it was not something that either of us could fully describe or understand. One day she walked into Mrs. Tobler’s second grade classroom, her bespectacled blue eyes filled with fear at the foreignness of it all, and the next we were inseparable. Every day she sat in the desk to my left, and every possible afternoon was spent together at one of our houses, which were in adjacent neighborhoods. We were exactly the same height, her wavy blonde hair only slightly longer than my boyish brown bob. More than once we pretended to be twins. And our names rhymed, which surely meant that we would be best friends forever. Our third summer was to be our best one yet, and so we embarked upon our inevitable trek into the woods. It was then that we saw the tree.
Unlike the Guardian Oak, this tree was neither majestic nor intimidating. Had it reached its prime, it probably would have extended well beyond its 15 feet, but it had stopped its vertical growth only inches taller than Sarah and I. Its trunk had curved abruptly, so the rest of its height had grown grotesquely downwards at a 45-degree angle towards the ground. And by some force unbeknownst to us, a fallen branch was leaned up against the far side. The rest of the world had overlooked this particular tree, as its deformities had apparently rendered it useless. But to Sarah and me, the tree was magical, brimming with endless possibilities. We gazed at The Woods around us and saw that the entire earthen floor was littered with similar sized branches. The idea formed wildly, instantly sprung from the most imaginative of spaces within both of us. We began constructing our walls. Slowly at first, methodically selecting the branches nearest to us, and then taking turns resting them against the cool spine of the arched tree. When the area around the fort became barren of branches large enough to lean, we started off into another part of The Woods. But the branches never ran out, and little by little, our fort in The Woods began to take shape.
There was just enough room for two people inside the wooden walls of our fort, but our fire pit was set for three. Three blocks of real firewood made a triangle around the circle of stones that contained an array of delicate twigs and leaves – our imitation firewood that we knew we would never light. Around our imaginary fire was our favorite place to be on sunny afternoons. Our shaded citadel was the perfect escape from the other neighborhood kids and from our parents’ incessant need for our assistance. The ground always smelled like it had just rained, and the feeling of moist earth between my toes felt even better than any lawn. Besides the gentle tones of our conversations, the only noises Sarah and I heard were the cheery songs of forest birds and the distant hum of cars on Goldenrod Lane mixed with the joyful shouting laughter from the other neighborhood kids. From our ceiling hung several handmade ornaments – maple leaves strung together with twine, wilted yellow dandelions whose stems were carefully braided between blades of tall grass. They were tiny masterpieces within our greatest work of art, and each day the ones that had faded or blown away were replaced with those freshly made, often much more intricate than their predecessors.
The fort required constant maintenance. Summer rainstorms often damaged the flimsy walls, and Sarah and I would spend several minutes every day repairing fallen branches and adding new ones from other parts of The Woods. We grew to love these precious minutes even more than the fantasies we created within the tree fort, and we often spent so much time tinkering and building that the sun would sink below the horizon of The Woods before we could begin playing. In this basking, golden glow of sunset Sarah and I would walk together along the increasingly familiar path back to my house, our heads and hearts filled with unspoken awe at the place we had created. Our fort was unique to our best friendship. It was the one thing that Sarah and I could call completely our own – the one thing that separated us from the rest of the world, that nobody else could ever touch.
One day everything changed. There was a tension in the air around The Woods that indicated they no longer belonged solely to us. Overnight, the natural, earthen tones of The Woods had been invaded with a new color. Around the base of almost each and every tree, a ribbon had been tied. The ribbons were rough, tightly knotted, and colored the same hideous shade of orange as hunting vests and construction cones. My insides clenched in sinking fear, and Sarah’s gaze told me she felt the same. Our legs felt heavy as we sprinted down the familiar path to our beloved paradise in the trees. It too had been condemned. We did our best to ignore it, to pretend that nothing was different and that our fort would always be our summer secret – our safe refuge in The Woods. But summer ended too soon, as all summers do, and its end only brought more change. Sarah and I went to different schools, and the onset of fractions and decimals resulted in less and less time outside in the tree fort. We both met other friends at our new schools, and without our daily routine in The Woods, Sarah and I were powerless to halt the slowly creeping drift that had begun to settle between us.
I returned home from school one fall afternoon to what sounded like a thousand buzzing hornets in my backyard. That day, my mother had twice as many questions for me as she usually did, and I knew that she was trying to keep me from seeing. I dashed to the sliding glass doors that opened towards my backyard and The Woods beyond. Except that day I saw right through the woods and into the ashen realm of the backside of Goldenrod Lane. The Woods had been demolished, every tree leveled into a grotesque graveyard of lifeless stumps and branches. I rushed outside and tore down the back porch steps, praying with each step that our fort had somehow averted the massacre. It hadn’t. My mother must have called Sarah and her mother, because the three of them soon appeared at my side. When I felt Sarah’s thin shoulder brush against mine, the full weight of it all hit me with a crushing blow. Hot, bitter tears escaped from the both of us, and one sideways glance at our mothers’ dampened cheeks revealed how they shared our anguish. We stood there until we could no longer bear the sight of our fallen palace in The Woods. I reached down and uncovered a small orange ribbon lying in the dirt, and the four of us turned to go. It was the very last time we would travel along that well-beaten path.
A new house stands on Goldenrod Lane. It is misshapen and blue-grey, and its backyard consists of a gaudy three-season porch directly above an unnaturally flawless patch of sod. This artificial backyard connects with mine, and only the Guardian Tree is left to separate the two. The magic of my backyard has faded with age, and I can no longer call the house on Goldenrod Lane my own. But even now, never have I loved and loathed a place so much as that patch of sod where The Woods once stood, where underneath lies the sawdust of my childhood fortress – an everlasting memento of my summers with Sarah.
School was finally over, and for the kids of Goldenrod Lane, summertime had never felt sweeter. At nine years old, every inch of my body quivered with the anticipation of summer adventures yet to ensue. My imagination soared boundlessly, a stark contrast to the reality that stretched only so far as my dearly loved backyard and quiet suburban neighborhood. Just minutes had passed since the school bus dropped us off in the cul-de-sac, and the boys were already racing on their bicycles down the big hill at the crown of Goldenrod Lane, shadowed closely by the whispers and giggles of my boy-crazy little sister and her best friend, Brielle. I waited on my front porch steps for Sarah.
Growing up, my backyard was a child’s paradise. It was Goldenrod’s finest, its grassy expanse large enough for neighborhood-wide games of freeze tag, kickball, or hide and seek. The grass was soft and lush, and even the patchy prickly-pear weeds could not deter our bare toes from prancing in its velvety sheen. There was a rickety swingset off to one side, with a lone blue swing, a trapeze bar, and a pair of rings like those that a gymnast would use. On the other side was a miniature sandbox, where countless earthworms were inadvertently unearthed in many a quest to build the perfect sandcastle. But between the swingset and the sandbox was the castle. A wooden tower covered with a weathered yellow tarp, the castle overlooked the backyard and was the gateway to almost every backyard fantasy. But even in all of its royalty, my backyard alone could not satisfy the curiosity that grows with age. That summer, our insatiable appetite for exploration led Sarah and I away from the comforts of our familiar backyard wonderland and into The Woods.
The Woods was the name that the kids of Goldenrod Lane had given to the cluster of trees that occupied the empty lot behind my house. The forefront of The Woods was guarded by a massive oak tree, in which not even boldest of the neighborhood boys had ever dared to climb. The Woods were rarely ventured into, but on that first day of summer, they beckoned to Sarah and me. It was the start of our third summer together, Sarah having instantly become my best friend after moving to my hometown. Our friendship just happened; it was not something that either of us could fully describe or understand. One day she walked into Mrs. Tobler’s second grade classroom, her bespectacled blue eyes filled with fear at the foreignness of it all, and the next we were inseparable. Every day she sat in the desk to my left, and every possible afternoon was spent together at one of our houses, which were in adjacent neighborhoods. We were exactly the same height, her wavy blonde hair only slightly longer than my boyish brown bob. More than once we pretended to be twins. And our names rhymed, which surely meant that we would be best friends forever. Our third summer was to be our best one yet, and so we embarked upon our inevitable trek into the woods. It was then that we saw the tree.
Unlike the Guardian Oak, this tree was neither majestic nor intimidating. Had it reached its prime, it probably would have extended well beyond its 15 feet, but it had stopped its vertical growth only inches taller than Sarah and I. Its trunk had curved abruptly, so the rest of its height had grown grotesquely downwards at a 45-degree angle towards the ground. And by some force unbeknownst to us, a fallen branch was leaned up against the far side. The rest of the world had overlooked this particular tree, as its deformities had apparently rendered it useless. But to Sarah and me, the tree was magical, brimming with endless possibilities. We gazed at The Woods around us and saw that the entire earthen floor was littered with similar sized branches. The idea formed wildly, instantly sprung from the most imaginative of spaces within both of us. We began constructing our walls. Slowly at first, methodically selecting the branches nearest to us, and then taking turns resting them against the cool spine of the arched tree. When the area around the fort became barren of branches large enough to lean, we started off into another part of The Woods. But the branches never ran out, and little by little, our fort in The Woods began to take shape.
There was just enough room for two people inside the wooden walls of our fort, but our fire pit was set for three. Three blocks of real firewood made a triangle around the circle of stones that contained an array of delicate twigs and leaves – our imitation firewood that we knew we would never light. Around our imaginary fire was our favorite place to be on sunny afternoons. Our shaded citadel was the perfect escape from the other neighborhood kids and from our parents’ incessant need for our assistance. The ground always smelled like it had just rained, and the feeling of moist earth between my toes felt even better than any lawn. Besides the gentle tones of our conversations, the only noises Sarah and I heard were the cheery songs of forest birds and the distant hum of cars on Goldenrod Lane mixed with the joyful shouting laughter from the other neighborhood kids. From our ceiling hung several handmade ornaments – maple leaves strung together with twine, wilted yellow dandelions whose stems were carefully braided between blades of tall grass. They were tiny masterpieces within our greatest work of art, and each day the ones that had faded or blown away were replaced with those freshly made, often much more intricate than their predecessors.
The fort required constant maintenance. Summer rainstorms often damaged the flimsy walls, and Sarah and I would spend several minutes every day repairing fallen branches and adding new ones from other parts of The Woods. We grew to love these precious minutes even more than the fantasies we created within the tree fort, and we often spent so much time tinkering and building that the sun would sink below the horizon of The Woods before we could begin playing. In this basking, golden glow of sunset Sarah and I would walk together along the increasingly familiar path back to my house, our heads and hearts filled with unspoken awe at the place we had created. Our fort was unique to our best friendship. It was the one thing that Sarah and I could call completely our own – the one thing that separated us from the rest of the world, that nobody else could ever touch.
One day everything changed. There was a tension in the air around The Woods that indicated they no longer belonged solely to us. Overnight, the natural, earthen tones of The Woods had been invaded with a new color. Around the base of almost each and every tree, a ribbon had been tied. The ribbons were rough, tightly knotted, and colored the same hideous shade of orange as hunting vests and construction cones. My insides clenched in sinking fear, and Sarah’s gaze told me she felt the same. Our legs felt heavy as we sprinted down the familiar path to our beloved paradise in the trees. It too had been condemned. We did our best to ignore it, to pretend that nothing was different and that our fort would always be our summer secret – our safe refuge in The Woods. But summer ended too soon, as all summers do, and its end only brought more change. Sarah and I went to different schools, and the onset of fractions and decimals resulted in less and less time outside in the tree fort. We both met other friends at our new schools, and without our daily routine in The Woods, Sarah and I were powerless to halt the slowly creeping drift that had begun to settle between us.
I returned home from school one fall afternoon to what sounded like a thousand buzzing hornets in my backyard. That day, my mother had twice as many questions for me as she usually did, and I knew that she was trying to keep me from seeing. I dashed to the sliding glass doors that opened towards my backyard and The Woods beyond. Except that day I saw right through the woods and into the ashen realm of the backside of Goldenrod Lane. The Woods had been demolished, every tree leveled into a grotesque graveyard of lifeless stumps and branches. I rushed outside and tore down the back porch steps, praying with each step that our fort had somehow averted the massacre. It hadn’t. My mother must have called Sarah and her mother, because the three of them soon appeared at my side. When I felt Sarah’s thin shoulder brush against mine, the full weight of it all hit me with a crushing blow. Hot, bitter tears escaped from the both of us, and one sideways glance at our mothers’ dampened cheeks revealed how they shared our anguish. We stood there until we could no longer bear the sight of our fallen palace in The Woods. I reached down and uncovered a small orange ribbon lying in the dirt, and the four of us turned to go. It was the very last time we would travel along that well-beaten path.
A new house stands on Goldenrod Lane. It is misshapen and blue-grey, and its backyard consists of a gaudy three-season porch directly above an unnaturally flawless patch of sod. This artificial backyard connects with mine, and only the Guardian Tree is left to separate the two. The magic of my backyard has faded with age, and I can no longer call the house on Goldenrod Lane my own. But even now, never have I loved and loathed a place so much as that patch of sod where The Woods once stood, where underneath lies the sawdust of my childhood fortress – an everlasting memento of my summers with Sarah.
31 August 2008
like winning in the last 40 seconds
"I miss you."
I miss you too, Mom.
(That we say all the time.)
"Are you happy?"
.. That's a new one.
On September 13th, the Gophers will be playing Montana State.
Montana State.
Daddy just got offered a job in Montana. In Bozeman. The place that showed me the meaning of soul-worming. It was my mom who said it, actually.
"You know, there's some people and some places that just dig their way deep into your soul."
Bozeman is one of those places. The wacky neighbors, the mountains
My first love.
The place just grabbed us both - my mom and I. And now my family may go back? It's funny that the very afternoon of the next big game is so close to the day daddy's new job would begin.
But will it be the same?
The thing about that soulful place is that it has eaten parts of us alive. It breaks my heart to remember most days. The pages of my junior high diary read like a Nicholas Sparks novel - only less eloquent and much more humiliating.
But the raw, soul-wrenching emotion? It was never like that in Texas. And Minnesota is different now that I'm older. A young soul - like mine was in Bozeman - takes to things so much differently.
I'm an old soul
It feels so kooky and obnoxiously philosophical to put it like that. But things that go as deep as Bozeman tend to do that to you. And my mom's soul must be even older.
I cried all of Christmas Day last year.
"I know why you cry," she said. "You're just like me."
Just like her.
"You don't like change. It doesn't feel right. It's not right - Christmas in a hotel."
She was nothing short of spot-on. We both know that stuff shouldn't matter. That being with your family should make Christmas a happy holiday.
But she wasn't with the rest of her family.
Was it too much to ask for a home and a tree and maybe some snow?
In Texas it is.
Photographing a Big Ten football game is terrifying.
How can turf be at once squishy and scratchy? It's unnatural. And the light? artificial. And the crowd? distracting.
But I have the best job in the world.
And the best friends in the world. Because even though my pictures were shit, Sarah's still proud. And Charlie and Rolly and Sam.
Sarah called me her "little world class photog."
world class.
photog.
hers.
The change did bring me Sarah.
And Bozeman will be back the 13th.
Will I feel it in the air the players expel from their lungs? In the scent that hangs from their skin? If my family goes back, will it be ok?
Yes, mom, I am happy.
Blissfully and divinely
I miss you too, Mom.
(That we say all the time.)
"Are you happy?"
.. That's a new one.
On September 13th, the Gophers will be playing Montana State.
Montana State.
Daddy just got offered a job in Montana. In Bozeman. The place that showed me the meaning of soul-worming. It was my mom who said it, actually.
"You know, there's some people and some places that just dig their way deep into your soul."
Bozeman is one of those places. The wacky neighbors, the mountains
My first love.
The place just grabbed us both - my mom and I. And now my family may go back? It's funny that the very afternoon of the next big game is so close to the day daddy's new job would begin.
But will it be the same?
The thing about that soulful place is that it has eaten parts of us alive. It breaks my heart to remember most days. The pages of my junior high diary read like a Nicholas Sparks novel - only less eloquent and much more humiliating.
But the raw, soul-wrenching emotion? It was never like that in Texas. And Minnesota is different now that I'm older. A young soul - like mine was in Bozeman - takes to things so much differently.
I'm an old soul
It feels so kooky and obnoxiously philosophical to put it like that. But things that go as deep as Bozeman tend to do that to you. And my mom's soul must be even older.
I cried all of Christmas Day last year.
"I know why you cry," she said. "You're just like me."
Just like her.
"You don't like change. It doesn't feel right. It's not right - Christmas in a hotel."
She was nothing short of spot-on. We both know that stuff shouldn't matter. That being with your family should make Christmas a happy holiday.
But she wasn't with the rest of her family.
Was it too much to ask for a home and a tree and maybe some snow?
In Texas it is.
Photographing a Big Ten football game is terrifying.
How can turf be at once squishy and scratchy? It's unnatural. And the light? artificial. And the crowd? distracting.
But I have the best job in the world.
And the best friends in the world. Because even though my pictures were shit, Sarah's still proud. And Charlie and Rolly and Sam.
Sarah called me her "little world class photog."
world class.
photog.
hers.
The change did bring me Sarah.
And Bozeman will be back the 13th.
Will I feel it in the air the players expel from their lungs? In the scent that hangs from their skin? If my family goes back, will it be ok?
Yes, mom, I am happy.
Blissfully and divinely
25 August 2008
Freshman year everything
What a shame, they’d say, those bridges burned
Such time wasted on intricacies
The ash and smoke of which would linger long after the smoldering heap had cooled
And vanished,
Choking with invisible hands the throats which breathed together
The scent of books and sweat and old brick buildings
With a twinge of alcohol on most nights
Making us feel sleepy and fuzzy and so much more sure
Even though we knew next year would come
And you knew decay was inevitable
But we told ourselves anyways we were resistant to flames
It’s not your fault, they’d say, that she turned out to be
So different than you’d expected
That she’d lit the proverbial match and made worthless all your efforts
And we’d believe them for awhile
Maybe even enjoy watching the dazzling flames
And inhaling their scent
The buzz of which would remind us so much of how things were that we could almost believe
They still were
Even after we screamed and I cried and you felt sick at heart
Maybe it still was
Maybe that – with time – was all we needed to begin to rebuild and re-carve and relive
But on the eve of my departure
Not too long before your greatest adventure, perhaps
Scenes sputtered and danced across the old T.V.
That sang you to sleep oh so many times that year
And I felt somewhere within my being
These words I now stammer to you in verse
The words that fan away the choking smoke that only served to burn our eyes
And cloud the cavities of the hearts
That would have, if we’d asked, told us all along
The beloved bridge had only concealed the spot where, briefly and beautifully, our paths entwine
Carrying us safely ahead
Such time wasted on intricacies
The ash and smoke of which would linger long after the smoldering heap had cooled
And vanished,
Choking with invisible hands the throats which breathed together
The scent of books and sweat and old brick buildings
With a twinge of alcohol on most nights
Making us feel sleepy and fuzzy and so much more sure
Even though we knew next year would come
And you knew decay was inevitable
But we told ourselves anyways we were resistant to flames
It’s not your fault, they’d say, that she turned out to be
So different than you’d expected
That she’d lit the proverbial match and made worthless all your efforts
And we’d believe them for awhile
Maybe even enjoy watching the dazzling flames
And inhaling their scent
The buzz of which would remind us so much of how things were that we could almost believe
They still were
Even after we screamed and I cried and you felt sick at heart
Maybe it still was
Maybe that – with time – was all we needed to begin to rebuild and re-carve and relive
But on the eve of my departure
Not too long before your greatest adventure, perhaps
Scenes sputtered and danced across the old T.V.
That sang you to sleep oh so many times that year
And I felt somewhere within my being
These words I now stammer to you in verse
The words that fan away the choking smoke that only served to burn our eyes
And cloud the cavities of the hearts
That would have, if we’d asked, told us all along
The beloved bridge had only concealed the spot where, briefly and beautifully, our paths entwine
Carrying us safely ahead
22 August 2008
Pirates and Princesses
I do not speak French.
Lexi speaks French, and she teaches me completely useless words and phrases whenever we're on one of our infamous adventures.
Last summer, I learned I was "maladroit mais charmant." La princesse. Even though it was she who started a fire in the kitchen at Cafe Paris (microwaving a metal basket can have that effect), and even though it was I who cooked for her every day (due to obvious reasons, perhaps. But still.), so were my Parisian descriptors.
And she? My summer sister. Le pirate. She swallowed my summer whole. Or maybe the summer swallowed us whole. In South Texas, the heat is unbearable. Even now as I sit in my new room at Alpha Chi Omega, the creases of my knees and elbows drenched in sweat due to the houses' lack of air conditioning, I know that summer in Minnepolis is nothing in comparison. On some nights, when my parents had fallen asleep, we would sit on my front porch and smoke djarums, reveling in the stickiness of the air around us and the sweet scent of cloves. It was easier to ignore our creeping anxieties when we were in it together.
Then the night of the party came. My worlds collided - Allyson, Rolly, Marco, Danny, Jer-Bear, Megan, Miles, Jeramie and her entourage. Some people worm their way into your soul. Like every wrong in the world is nothing when theirs, like every pounding of their chests matters more than your own. They're your limbs, your tears, your raison d'etre. Your soul-worms. My soul-worms. And they made Lexi their own. And when the alcohol and cigarettes had clouded me and I made mistakes that everyone knew were stupid, they were still mine.
Lexi speaks French, and she teaches me completely useless words and phrases whenever we're on one of our infamous adventures.
Last summer, I learned I was "maladroit mais charmant." La princesse. Even though it was she who started a fire in the kitchen at Cafe Paris (microwaving a metal basket can have that effect), and even though it was I who cooked for her every day (due to obvious reasons, perhaps. But still.), so were my Parisian descriptors.
And she? My summer sister. Le pirate. She swallowed my summer whole. Or maybe the summer swallowed us whole. In South Texas, the heat is unbearable. Even now as I sit in my new room at Alpha Chi Omega, the creases of my knees and elbows drenched in sweat due to the houses' lack of air conditioning, I know that summer in Minnepolis is nothing in comparison. On some nights, when my parents had fallen asleep, we would sit on my front porch and smoke djarums, reveling in the stickiness of the air around us and the sweet scent of cloves. It was easier to ignore our creeping anxieties when we were in it together.
Then the night of the party came. My worlds collided - Allyson, Rolly, Marco, Danny, Jer-Bear, Megan, Miles, Jeramie and her entourage. Some people worm their way into your soul. Like every wrong in the world is nothing when theirs, like every pounding of their chests matters more than your own. They're your limbs, your tears, your raison d'etre. Your soul-worms. My soul-worms. And they made Lexi their own. And when the alcohol and cigarettes had clouded me and I made mistakes that everyone knew were stupid, they were still mine.
"Vous puez, chien," Lexi and I would tell my puppy Timber as we cleaned up the morning's mess. I would be all apologies, Marco and Miles and Jeramie and Danny would be gone, and Rolly would make my parents' bed and laugh that laugh as Jerry tried to explain to Lexi and I how he just couldn't figure out how he ended up next to Lexi after she had passed out. And Ally would kiss us all on the cheeks and say how much fun that disaster had been, and together we'd gather the djarum butts from all over the back and front porches so as to leave everything the same as it was before.
The beginning of our first summer in Minneapolis would come, and Lexi and I would drive to the run-down computer repair shop in Frogtown that only accepted cash. Lexi would call it a "c'est un magasin de merde," and Huy would roll his eyes at our tragic selves for not knowing a thing about laptops.
That first adventure of the summer would bring everything back that we had locked away when the school year had stolen our focus. But we, le pirate et la princesse, would be ready.
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