All the trees were taller than they were when I left.

The fence was taller, too.

I seem to have shrunk in contrast to my childhood home. Become small. Slipped away.

This is what I was thinking as i was sitting in the backyard, occasionally reading my book but more often just sitting and looking around. Remembering. soaking it in.

The house is sold; I will never again go inside of it, I'll never run my fingers along the curves in the wrought-iron fence that divides the living room from the hallway. I'll never wander into my room and go look for the tiny writing behind the dresser--my initials, in pen, in my last act of vandalism before I left for college.

I went through my stuff on Saturday, starting in the morning and finishing about 3:30. I packed up ten boxes of things to send to myself in Seattle, and the rest was either given to Goodwill, saved by my mom (some of the books, some of the dolls), or, in the case of the box that rats had nested in, thrown out. (god, that was gross.)

The rats like to chew plastic. A doll, my favorite doll from my young adolescent days, lay dismembered in that box. They had chewed her face, severed the cord that kept her torso on her hips, gnawed her arms free from her body. She was unsalvageable.

The rest of the boxes, though, yeilded treasures I hadn't thought about in years. My Strawberry Shortcake collection, my My Little Pony collection, my model horse collection, books that went out of print years ago that I haven't been able to replace. [Hooray, Melissa Scott novels! The Silence Leigh trilogy is mine again!] Jewelry boxes that are going to come in handy. My small cedar chest.

But it's so strange to think about never returning. It hasn't been "home" for years...and yet I knew i could always go back to visit. There is no other sound that is exactly identical to the way the screen door slams behind me when i'm flying out into the backyard. There is no subsitute for the way the back gate swings out onto the easement. I sat under the nectarine tree, read my book, and was rained upon by a thousand dark pink petals.

There is no subsitute for the privet that finally recovered from years of kids jumping over it. We carved out a low place with our feet, jumping over it onto the lawn.

There is no replacement for the burrows in which the toads used to hide. There will never again be a world like the one I created in the backyard.

My parents, of course, were stressed out. Moving for the first time in 29 years will do that to you. I helped as i could, but mostly stayed out of the way. Their new house is twice the size of this one, in Sacramento. (Their house looks like the first pictures on this page: http://www.goldrivergroup.com/RealEstate.htm) They wanted to get out of the Bay Area, they each wanted an office as well as a guest bedroom, they wanted to get away from the neighbors. And I approve. I mean, how can i not? I hated San Jose, hated the bred to the bone suburbaness of it all, hated the fact that everything was so far away, hated even the dusty yellow hills and the breathless way summer died in an explosion of red pistachio trees and gold gingko trees.

I hated it, but it's sort of sad that I'll never have reason to go back.

I sat in the backyard and thought about how much taller the trees got after I left home. The unnamed plant just outside of the back fence has turned into a thirty-foot-tall tree in the nine years I've been gone. I remember cutting twigs off of it--it had the best sticks for building things, nice and straight. The nectarine tree I sat under was much bigger than I remembered it.

I sat, and stared up at the sky.

You can't ever go back. Ever.

I had friend with SeanB, the aforementioned friend, on Saturday night. We went to Midori, a sushi place in Sunnyvale, on a reccomendation from his friend. *wow*, that was good. Almost worth flying down to the Bay Area on a regular basis for.

The company wasn't half-bad, either. *hee* actually, I had a very good time talking with Sean for a few hoursabout life, the universe, surfing, and everything, and it was a welcome respite from my parents and the boxes and everything that I'd gotten dusty crawling into that day.

I'm rather hoping he had as good a time as i did. Thanks, Sean, you made my day on Saturday. :)

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