Dear Annie,
Last night, for the first time in so long I don't remember, I dreamt about you. Honestly, it's been so long since I've seen you that I hardly think about you. I feel a little bad about that. But when I do think about you, it is always with a mixture of fondness and fear and nostalgia.
I think about you when I think about the Barbies of the World collection or China dolls. I still have the layout of your old house memorized, the one on Marilyn Drive. Sometimes, when I see a spider I remember how terrified you were of them and how I was so apathetic about them. I remember that, as children do, you wanted me to be scared of them too and you held the flashlight tightly as your other hand made spiders engulf the shadows of the ceiling. And all I could do was giggle, because it seemed so silly to me, to be afraid of such a little thing. What could it do to me?
It wasn't until the next morning, when we discovered Smoky (my Labrador puppy) dead, the rigor mortis having set in and his little body conformed to the side of his dog house, that I became afraid. And Jasmine (Smoky's sister) died later that afternoon, half buried underneath the shovel and other tools Wes used to bury them in the yard. I still feel guilty about leaving her suffocating underneath those tools. It took her hours to die, when we could've rushed her to a vet. Because of that day I became afraid of spiders. Spiders brought death. And massive amounts of childhood guilt. I drift between the waves of that fear really, some days are better than others. Did you ever grow out of it?
It's funny, but when I think of you I often think about you singing. You sang "Amazing Grace" that day with the dead puppies, a plaintive dirge. You sang that cute little song we made up about Ice cream cones to Hannah so she wouldn't cry as we drove to my house. Looking back you and Maria, your sister, were always singing. At least in my memory.
I don't even remember how we met or became friends. I know that you had been on the edges of my periphery for a while, someone I knew but not someone I hung out with. It wasn't until after the other girls I used to hang out with had ditched me, for good apparently, that you and I became friends. It was jealousy that had caused them to ditch me in the first place. I was only seven and was already a woman in all senses of the word except for menstruation. You were ten and had not yet achieved a training bra so I'm not sure why you and I ended up being friends. I sometimes worried that you didn't like me because of my breasts. They always got in the way and I was more a boy than a girl most times.
It was only when I was with you that I was a girl, really. We played dress up most of the time. Or we hid behind the bushes against the fence at the back of your house and spoke to our "fairy." That little bit of imagination I cherish most. I adored our "fairy." I hated it when that part of our play-time came to an end. She died with the oncoming winter, a summer and autumn sprite, and we never resurrected her.
We chased each other through the house sometimes, searching for places to hide. Most often that was the laundry room amongst the dress up clothes and wash waiting to go. That day that you claimed you were a vampire and that you were going to drink me dry, where were your parents? Or Maria? I don't remember them being there at all. I remember running, out of breath and slightly frightened. I have always felt mildly panicked when someone was "chasing" me, even in play. I hid first in Maria's room, then down the stairs and sliding into the kitchen and down another set of stairs to the sunken living room. From there I ran to the laundry room. I hid behind one of the machines, but I could hear you coming. I ended up opening the door to the back staircase to your parents room. I ran, quietly, up the stairs into their room and into their bathroom and hid behind the glass doors of the shower. You found me, of course.
When I dreamt of you, I dreamt that you were married, happily, and working for a Senator. Which senator is unclear. But where you were living was like a dream land, partially because it was. Everything was rounded and fantastical. It had portions of the house on Marilyn Drive and other houses I've admired over the years. And for portions, I was seven running away from you all over again. But you were an adult and I was the child, it was odd. It never felt like that when we were kids, I always felt that you and I were on even ground.
After all, it was in your house that I fell in love with Ancient Egypt, our Homeschool group learning about Tutankhamen. And your dog's name was Kizzy, after the ancestor of Alex Haley in his book "Roots."
I miss you, Annie. I do think about you, not as often as I used to. Do you remember me at all? I wish you well, maybe one day, with the wonders of the internet and what not, we'll be able to find one another on Facebook or something.
Until then,
Love,
Sarai
Last night, for the first time in so long I don't remember, I dreamt about you. Honestly, it's been so long since I've seen you that I hardly think about you. I feel a little bad about that. But when I do think about you, it is always with a mixture of fondness and fear and nostalgia.
I think about you when I think about the Barbies of the World collection or China dolls. I still have the layout of your old house memorized, the one on Marilyn Drive. Sometimes, when I see a spider I remember how terrified you were of them and how I was so apathetic about them. I remember that, as children do, you wanted me to be scared of them too and you held the flashlight tightly as your other hand made spiders engulf the shadows of the ceiling. And all I could do was giggle, because it seemed so silly to me, to be afraid of such a little thing. What could it do to me?
It wasn't until the next morning, when we discovered Smoky (my Labrador puppy) dead, the rigor mortis having set in and his little body conformed to the side of his dog house, that I became afraid. And Jasmine (Smoky's sister) died later that afternoon, half buried underneath the shovel and other tools Wes used to bury them in the yard. I still feel guilty about leaving her suffocating underneath those tools. It took her hours to die, when we could've rushed her to a vet. Because of that day I became afraid of spiders. Spiders brought death. And massive amounts of childhood guilt. I drift between the waves of that fear really, some days are better than others. Did you ever grow out of it?
It's funny, but when I think of you I often think about you singing. You sang "Amazing Grace" that day with the dead puppies, a plaintive dirge. You sang that cute little song we made up about Ice cream cones to Hannah so she wouldn't cry as we drove to my house. Looking back you and Maria, your sister, were always singing. At least in my memory.
I don't even remember how we met or became friends. I know that you had been on the edges of my periphery for a while, someone I knew but not someone I hung out with. It wasn't until after the other girls I used to hang out with had ditched me, for good apparently, that you and I became friends. It was jealousy that had caused them to ditch me in the first place. I was only seven and was already a woman in all senses of the word except for menstruation. You were ten and had not yet achieved a training bra so I'm not sure why you and I ended up being friends. I sometimes worried that you didn't like me because of my breasts. They always got in the way and I was more a boy than a girl most times.
It was only when I was with you that I was a girl, really. We played dress up most of the time. Or we hid behind the bushes against the fence at the back of your house and spoke to our "fairy." That little bit of imagination I cherish most. I adored our "fairy." I hated it when that part of our play-time came to an end. She died with the oncoming winter, a summer and autumn sprite, and we never resurrected her.
We chased each other through the house sometimes, searching for places to hide. Most often that was the laundry room amongst the dress up clothes and wash waiting to go. That day that you claimed you were a vampire and that you were going to drink me dry, where were your parents? Or Maria? I don't remember them being there at all. I remember running, out of breath and slightly frightened. I have always felt mildly panicked when someone was "chasing" me, even in play. I hid first in Maria's room, then down the stairs and sliding into the kitchen and down another set of stairs to the sunken living room. From there I ran to the laundry room. I hid behind one of the machines, but I could hear you coming. I ended up opening the door to the back staircase to your parents room. I ran, quietly, up the stairs into their room and into their bathroom and hid behind the glass doors of the shower. You found me, of course.
When I dreamt of you, I dreamt that you were married, happily, and working for a Senator. Which senator is unclear. But where you were living was like a dream land, partially because it was. Everything was rounded and fantastical. It had portions of the house on Marilyn Drive and other houses I've admired over the years. And for portions, I was seven running away from you all over again. But you were an adult and I was the child, it was odd. It never felt like that when we were kids, I always felt that you and I were on even ground.
After all, it was in your house that I fell in love with Ancient Egypt, our Homeschool group learning about Tutankhamen. And your dog's name was Kizzy, after the ancestor of Alex Haley in his book "Roots."
I miss you, Annie. I do think about you, not as often as I used to. Do you remember me at all? I wish you well, maybe one day, with the wonders of the internet and what not, we'll be able to find one another on Facebook or something.
Until then,
Love,
Sarai
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