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is it a frivolous luxury to believe that you can do whatever you want?


life overlaps are interesting to me. sometimes i think that my older self, Self 27, will collide with Self 9 or Self 6 in the same places where she once walked, or rode a bike, or sat by a fountain and read books from the imaginarium.

sometimes i think certain spaces will always be mine. i think, would i believe someone if they told me that one day, that space would no longer be mine? would no longer be open, or safe? there are some spaces that i thought were immune to loss. like misplacing a mountain -- impossible, improbable, unthinkable.

visiting old spaces that used to me mine is like walking on an indian burial ground. i want to take off my shoes, i want to respect Self 6 who still plays there, i want to feel the ground again as i did when I was self 3. i want to see if the bricks are the same, if the windows have people inside of them, i want to know what kind of life they have in those walls. i want to know where they drive that car, why they need so much space and what they carry in the trunk. i want to know if the rose paint is still stuck to the walls, under that layer of sage and terracotta. i want to know if the lemon tree is still in back yard next to tchaikovsky's grave -- i wonder if they even know he is in there. i want to know if there is a bald patch where adam and eve's clay faces used to peek out of the ivy wall -- if they also keep a key hidden there in case someone forgot, in case the door slammed shut in the wind. i want to know if it smells like chlorine, like martinelli's apple juice, or spider webs on light gray linoleum lawn furniture. i want to know if the garage smells like cardboard, like bungee cords, like sun-faded beach towels.

is that little apartment under the stairs -- the one he built for tigger -- still there? do they know all of the little secrets of the house -- where the poem is buried, where the chalk drawing was erased, where the bubble fell and bounced down the stairs into a pile of shattered glass? do they know that the piano was played for hours, antiques and jelly beans bartered and sold for pencil-drawn currency on notepads -- stacks of notepads -- little novelties of a more organized life -- an ironic vacation -- held together with a red wax strip?

do they remember the parties -- with salmon, with lamb, with a sauce that burned and shoes baking in the oven? what about the white pig that sat on a pink marble counter top, scarred and spotted from years of scotch tape and reminders, missed phone calls and dates, codes and account numbers?

what about mary? her socks leaving dark shaded marks on the butter yellow carpet?