The challenge was to write a letter to my childhood home. The collected letters will plaster the windows of a storefront in New York. As an Air Force brat, I've had several, but the home that holds the most magic in my memory is my apartment in Spain. To participate in the project, I sent in a handwritten 7" x 5" letter consisting of a photo and just a few sentences, but the original letter that I wrote is much more detailed.
Here it is:
To my Apartment Building in Torrejon , Spain :
Thank
you for being my accomplice in preschool mischief. I was only two years old when my father was
stationed at Torrejon Air Force Base.
You welcomed us warmly into the large fourth floor apartment that looked
out on a city block-sized park, surrounded by three identical buildings. I watched the military moving men attach an industrial
pulley to your strong support beams on the balcony. Our furniture was tied and pulled up through
the heavy metal doors because, as my mother said, “The stairways in old Spanish
buildings are ridiculously small.”
In a
place where very few spoke my language, your porch became my childhood
hide-a-way. I learned about the world
safely shielded by your faded blue awning.
I watched nervously as the beggar man sang for change on the street
below, afraid that he would notice the sun glinting off my blonde curls and
sing directly to me. When the white vans
topped with loud speakers paraded by our building, I would burst through the balcony
doors to see the crowds form outside.
Communist propaganda filled the air, something I wouldn’t have
understood even if it was spoken in English. Hundreds of white fliers floated
up and swirled through the air above.
You kept me safe as I leaned against your sturdy railing on tip toes,
stretching my tiny fingers to grab them as they fluttered past.
I once watched a lady jump to her death from one of
your balconies. I thought she was flying
until I saw the blood. Horrified, I sat quietly
under that blue shade and observed as Police came and covered her body with
white plastic. Days later my mother and
I walked to the grocery store and I saw the rose colored stain on the cement
along with green plastic beads from her necklace that huddled by the curb with
other debris caked in dried mud.
Your
balcony was also my secret science lab for childhood experiments. It was here that I broke a snow globe to find
out if the snow inside would melt and I drank a shot glass full of maple syrup. I attempted to make glue by mixing flour,
aftershave, and water in a coffee can and tried out my mom’s red lipstick on a
Cabbage Patch doll.
On New Years Eve, my dad pulled back the awning and
we sat together as a family watching the fireworks. I was enchanted by the
sizzling flair of sparkers on the balconies of other buildings and absorbed the
sounds of noise makers and happy shouting among neighbors. The ashes fell around us in the dark like fluffy
gray snow. On the eve of Three Kings Day,
I was one of the many kids living in you, who set their little shoes outside
and dreamt of finding them filled with candy in the morning.
Groups
of children from the private school played in the park wearing uniforms,
laughing and chasing each other. We
watched together from four stories above as I drew on envelopes and pretended to
be old enough for school. I enjoyed slowly
unwrapping gold foil from the melting chocolate coins that my dad kept in his
blue safe box, just for me.
When I started kindergarten, I spent my afternoons
out there as I practiced writing my name and counting the cars parked around the
street. In the evening, when
conversations drifted up to my hideout from the sidewalk, I listened for
Spanish words that I was learning in class.
I ate bright colored candies shaped like fruit out of the Tupperware
bowls, that were perfect miniature versions of my mom’s dishes, and cream
filled pastries that came in wrappers stamped with the Pink Panther. When my brother was born I lay out in the sun
with my cat, Nina, and looked at books as my parents tried to sooth his infant
crying inside.
After four years, our time in Spain came to an end.
As the movers packed up my things and lowered the boxes down from your
balcony on the pulley, I cried. You were
the only home I knew. I was scared of
leaving, traveling overseas on a plane, and saying goodbye to my friends at
school. Eventually, the last of my
stuffed animals and clothes were packed up and I left you for the last time. On our way to the airport, I watched you
shrink into the distance as my parents told me I would soon be meeting the
aunts and uncles that sent me pictures and toys. They said it was time to start another
chapter in a new home.
In
1992, the Air Force base was closed and I’ve read that you and the surrounding
buildings were torn down to make room for a development of big houses. No more American girls will sit on your
balconies pretending to be scientists or students. No matter how much time passes, I will always
think of you and our hide-a-way. I’ll never
forget how we watched the world together behind the safety of your bars and
awning.
Love,
No comments:
Post a Comment