I suppose the lesson was, don’t get too attached. Somehow it didn’t take.
But I felt a responsibility. I “accidentally” knocked down the real estate sign each night before bed, out of loyalty I suppose. Because hadn’t I picked out the carpeting. The bedspread. All in bright yellow in my basement bedroom. And I wanted no evidence of the sign through my window after my night time prayers. And hadn’t I lined books on shelves and housed stuffed dolls and animals within that same promise of rising yellow on this sturdy gravel of Van Dyke Road? The truth was, I loved being attached. I loved hopping from the school bus, or off of my bicycle, just past the mailbox that claimed our spot, into the driveway that claimed my heart.
They said it was just things. How easily they threw the metal sign into the back of the car, handed over the papers and sent us on our way. I didn’t have the words for it then, but how ironic it was that to stop all these abandonings, I would have to continue loving with pure abandon.
Everything can be taken away, I guess. But we give away only what we want to. I keep it all. It’s in the story, the painting. The words and books and flag, and photos.
I painted someone’s house. I imagined the story. At some point there was love, I thought, because didn’t they take the time to board the window to keep it all in? And maybe someone told them, don’t get too attached, as they hammered the last nail. And maybe in the painting they will always be.
And don’t I run my fingers across the gathering of all the love that remains and grows? Yes. I am attached. Ever.
