Foundations

When my parents got married, they bought a little house. When they were ready to start a family, they sold their little house to my mom's brother and his new wife and bought a bigger house two blocks away. In 1979, my cousin Amethyst was born. Almost exactly one year later, my cousin Anthony was born. A year and three months later, my cousin MacGyver was born. And then, ten months later I was born. And thus, there were four little children living within two blocks of each other, with two twenty-something stay-at-home-moms. My cousins and I spent most of our childhoods together. They were my surrogate siblings, my constant playmates. During the summers, Amethyst and I had sleepovers at one house or the other nearly every weekend. We'd spend the night in the yard barn clubhouse my parents built for me and my sister, or in the loft in the giant garage her dad built behind their house. We rode our bikes down to the neighborhood supermarket and blew our allowances on gum and Funyuns.

In March of my freshman year in college, Amethyst had her first kid, a girl (Custard). In the years since, all four of us "big kids" got married. The "little kids," our younger sisters--cousin Brie, born in 1984, and my sister and cousin Sunny, born in 1986--have dated and dismissed various boys, graduated high school, started college. Amethyst married her baby daddy, had another daughter (Pie), and last year got divorced. Anthony has two little girls with his wife. MacGyver married Danger, of course. Younger cousin Brie has a little son. Tonight I went over to my aunt and uncle's house--to my parents' first house--to have birthday cake and celebrate Custard's eighth birthday. Eight years, my God. Can it have been so long?

My parents still live in their second house, two blocks away from my aunt and uncle. All of us kids went to the same high school, two blocks in the other direction from my parents' house. Even now, our lives draw us back to these places, to these memories, to the solid foundation that our parents built for us, before we were even born.


Reading:  The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory

Playing:  Comfort Eagle by Cake (sound warning)