The Pines

My brother visited Google Earth one
day last week, found a picture of the house
we lived in as children, and emailed it to
me.

I scrutinized it carefully for several minutes
and sent him an email back telling him how
nothing about the house looked familiar.

It is only when I revisited the shot a few days
later that I noticed them there, just as they
have always been in my memory. The row
of pines which border the back lot and serve
as a boundary between backyards.

The pines. I was so busy looking at every
aspect of the house--the curved walkway
(I don't recall the walkway curving to the
front door or even a walkway, though it
must have been there--my brother remembers
it), and the carport Mom and Dad turned into a
family room is so much a part of the house
that one cannot tell in the picture that there
was ever a carport there and I cannot tell
that it's the same room they created--the windows
aren't right--the distance from windows to ground
beneath seems much closer together than it does
in memory--the memory of climbing out of those
windows in the late night--pale moon over the pines
out front, the smell of the ocean filling my senses--
thinking I was so cool. My mother and father searching
for me later, my ass getting literally beaten over and over--

no the window wasn't where it is now. And then
there is the portico at the front door, which I know
cannot have been there then. And I realize could
have been constructed after leaving, though my
brother says he remembers that, too.

But the pines. They are there. That large one, which
sits directly in the middle of the row of pines bordering
the lot, that's the one I fell from at age 9 when I wanted
the boys to know there was nothing they could do that
I could not do better. I learned a lesson in humility
that day, but I did not abandon my belief that I could
one-up them any day.

I climbed so high I could see houses blocks and blocks
away. I could even see to the boulevard--a distance
I would guess to be somewhere in the vicinity of 1/2
mile or so. The boulevard which was our boundary.
We were not permitted to cross it, so there was always
an allure with the boulevard.

And I was up there scrutinizing the boulevard when
I heard a snap, and that was that.

I didn't so much fall as slide down through the myriad
branches and dappled light to the lowest branch on the
tree. At that point, I fell the 6-8 feet to the ground.

I was scratched and bleeding, but my pride was the only
real injury that day. Of course, once my mom cleaned
up the blood and ranted about how I could've killed
myself, and by god how she'd kill me if I ever pulled such
a stunt again, I walked outside proudly displaying my
"war" wounds.

Though they tried hard to hide their approval of my
daring stunt, I could see it in their eyes.

I was one of them, and would continue to be for several more
years.

Yes, brother, something about the house looks familiar,
and that makes me smile this day.