My Other Life is Down the Street


The unfolding of the day put my daily walk in the evening. The breeze is very steady. Along my way, it plays a domino effect of high note musical tinklings from one wind chime set to another with a rustle of palm fronds as the percussion. The sun setting in the west is hidden behind plump clouds as if embarrassed by the undressing of the day.

The course I chose to walk tonight takes me down the Reynard street hill. I’m always amazed when I walk down the hill how different things can look. Before I moved to the top, off of Sutter, I had lived at the bottom. It will be a year this Wednesday since I moved from bottom to top.

My route tonight, will be just shy of the side street I lived on with Jack. We lived on that tiny cul-de-sac for 12 years. I have not been back since I closed the house for the last time, with Mel in her cat carrier, mewing and growling in confusion. I go by the street probably 2-3 times a week in my excursions around town, but I never glance to the left when passing the road sign.

Jack and I often walked up Reynard in our jaunts. When we first moved to San Diego, we’d only make it half way up before our chests clutched tightly as if fearful it was the last breath. Soon with persistence we moved up the hill with ease and walked far beyond.

I’m going to visit family in a week. One decision I ponder each time I fly back east is, “Should I take a quick peek at ‘ my life before’, ‘my other life’?” My husband John died, 16 years ago. The house I shared with John is one exit up Route 78 from the airport. It will only add a half hour to my drive further north, to where my family lives, or I guess I’d say where my ‘1st life’ took place.

It was with Jack in the predawn of a day in late September in 1993 that I locked the door for the final time, to the house on Pine Street in Roselle Park, New Jersey where I had lived with John for ten years. I lifted my boxer Dempsey into the front cab of the Ryder truck Jack and I had rented to drive our belongings from one coast to the other. I blew a kiss out the truck cab window, a fearful confusion of ‘This is my home’, mixed with ‘Go West Young Woman.’

I have peeked at Pine Street a few times. The peeking took place during the middle years of ‘my other life’. It happened when I had found peace with my loss of John in my life with Jack. My taunting pain of “What could have been,” had lighted to “I’m curious what they’ve done with the house.” I enjoyed riding slow down Pine Street to look at the tiny brick faced Cape Cod from the side before stopping in front. The first time, the sidewalk and steps leading up had changed from concrete and grey slate to flagstone and terra cotta. Another trip, I thought I’d taken a wrong turn. The mini two-bedroom now was one of the largest houses on the street with slanting roofs and a skylight popping a hole in the middle of the expanded upstairs.

I missed the landscaping John and I had done by hand in the front yard, but enjoyed much more the improvements to the driveway and garage. My thoughts took me back to our late night conversations on the back porch. Me, sketching on paper, walls to be knocked down, while John grabbed another pencil to outline gadgets to be installed. Money was no limit in how our cozy quarters could become the mansion of our dreams.

Earlier this year when it came time to sell my parent’s home, I squatted on the living room floor and dug through boxes, unearthed photos and heard long ago conversations in an undertone, being released from the walls with each painting or decorative object taken down.

This will be my first trip back to the town of my ‘1st life’. I wonder if I can be in curiosity just yet, to see how my childhood home has changed.

My circle walk down Reynard, up the hill behind the 7-Eleven and winding through the streets of Mission Hills, has brought me in the twilight of the cooling evening, back to the black metal door of my little cottage. As I turn the key, questions pop around me like the stars readying to fill the coming night sky. “When will I be ready to go down the street to glimpse my ‘other life’?” Will I feel the same way when in the nearing future; I turn the key for the last time on my cottage door? How many more doors will I experience last times?

I hear Mel meowing her welcome. Tonight, I am content with being in the questions, and I’m fine in my ‘Now life’.