When I was a kid, I’d sometimes explore the woods behind my house - they belonged to my uncle and were roamed by his four horses. There was a point where the mesquite trees and brush got so thick that the house disappeared. It didn’t take much; it was a small house.
I’d gaze into my backyard from afar and try to really look. The dog shuffled to her water bowl under the outdoor spigot. Our Siamese cat stretched in a tree. My sister carried glasses of iced tea from our kitchen to my dad’s office attached to the garage.
Looking at my home this way made me feel objective and appreciative and rich.
Raymond Carver’s poem “Locking Yourself Out, Then Trying to Get Back In” reminds me of those times:
You simply go out and shut the door
without thinking. And when you look back
at what you’ve done
it’s too late. If this sounds
like the story of life, okay.It was raining. The neighbors who had
a key were away. I tried and tried
the lower windows. Stared
inside at the sofa, plants, the table
and chairs, the stereo set-up.
My coffee cup and ashtray waited for me
on the glass-topped table, and my heart
went out to them. I said, Hello, friends,
or something like that. After all,
this wasn’t so bad.
Worst things had happened. This
was even a little funny. I found the ladder.
Took that and leaned it against the house.
Then climbed in the rain to the deck,
swung myself over the railing
and tried the door. Which was locked,
of course. But I looked in just the same
at my desk, some papers, and my chair.
This was the window on the other side
of the desk where I’d raise my eyes
and stare out when I sat at that desk.
This is not like downstairs, I thought.
This is something else.And it was something to look in like that, unseen,
from the deck. To be there, inside, and not be there.
I don’t even think I can talk about it.
I brought my face close to the glass
and imagined myself inside,
sitting at the desk. Looking up
from my work now and again.
Thinking about some other place
and some other time.
The people I had loved then.I stood there for a minute in the rain.
Considering myself to be the luckiest of men.
Even though a wave of grief passed through me.
Even though I felt violently ashamed
of the injury I’d done back then.
I bashed that beautiful window.
And stepped back in.
