Post
by Buttzilla » Tue Jun 08, 2010 6:18 pm
This is an essay my daughter wrote when she was 16. I'm posting it here because I think it reminds me of what impacts kids of divorce. As Madi explained it to me today, "It's not how much you and daddy pay or what you fought about, it's about what I lost. The things that mattered to me as a kid." Madeleine gave me her permission to share this so that it may put some things into perspective and remind us that it's the kids who lose no matter how you slice it.
Hang in there, love your daughter and fight FOR HER like a motherfucker. She'll know it in the end.
Her dad was working on marriage number 3 and had moved various times. AZ and I were also on a house a year plan for about 3 years. So that explains the 10 houses...
The Sprinkler With a Yellow Base
The shade felt nice against the hot summer breeze. So we put half of the sprinkler in the shade and the other half in the sun. Well, my dad did. He almost always sets up the sprinkler.
My pink tank top bathing suit lined with orange isn’t too wet. The only things that are really wet on the bathing suit are the three flowers; two of them yellow with an orange center and the third flower opposite. I remember being afraid of the sprinkler. I always thought it was going to hurt to run through it, the way a heavy downpour does. But, as I run through, I experience again the gentleness and excitement of this sprinkler.
This sprinkler. I will always remember what it looked like. I watch the bright yellow base twist side-to-side, spraying out water in one direction, then the other. My sister and I always try to beat the sprinkler. We wait until it almost touches us, and then dart through it before it can rain on us first.
But that sprinkler is gone now. We lost it six years and ten houses ago.
As I run through the sprinkler, I glance across the street. The neighbor’s horse, June, is eating grass while the two Dalmatians, Bentley and Ditto, stand and watch me. But those beautiful animals are not my neighbors anymore; they stopped being my neighbors six years and ten houses ago.
I always smile when I’m outside the house on Pocono Road, the house that is six years and ten houses ago. It is a subtle blue, subtle because the paint is chipped away. It is small, only five tiny rooms altogether, but it suits my family. It is broken, falling apart; it is perfect.
I always used to go outside when we lived at the Pocono house. The grass was always splendid green and the sun was always shining, even in the winter. The thing I miss the most about the Pocono house is the door; hand carved in 1932 by a Monarch family that fled during the Russian Revolution so they wouldn’t get killed. The door was smooth and a lighter brown. The carvings were of an eagle, a deer leaping through the woods, and a huge tree. There was a stain-glass window in the door. It was the most sacred part of the Pocono house.
The sprinkler comes back towards my sister and I. We prepare to beat it once more and, as always, we win. We will never get tired of this sprinkler with a yellow base. We will always want to beat it at its own sneaky game and will always have the biggest smiles on our faces when we do. I will pose for pictures, which my mom happily takes, with a silly face on; mouth open, tongue sticking out, eyes smiling, hair swirling across my face. The sprinkler in the background, the sunshine behind it.
The sprinkler with a yellow base. Gone six years and ten houses ago.
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Those who dance are considered insane by those who cannot hear the Music...
