Long Trip Alone
by Daisha MorganWhen I was young it seemed like just a hop, skip, and jump until I felt more at home elsewhere than in my own home. Every Sunday morning we rose with the sun and drove to Dunkin’ Donuts to get a dozen donuts. From there we drove a short distance to feel more welcomed than anywhere I can ever remember. As we pulled up the steep drive, my heart pounded a little faster. And there she was standing at the door ready to give us the biggest hug her little body could.
My Aunt Caroline has the most amazing home in Lakeside, California. It is perfect--way bigger than any home I have ever been in. The structure and landscape is mind blowing. Even though it is not considered a mansion, it looks like it goes on for miles with no end in sight.
As you walk through the door, the ceilings are the first to catch your eye. They seem to go up for miles, reminding me of the “Stretching Room” at Disney’s Haunted Mansion ride.The walls holding up the sanctuary are littered with Betty Boop decorations in neat disarray. And, at the top of these walls a skylight brings in the warmth. The sun shines through the glass and makes me feel like I am under my own little spotlight. (When I was younger, I could have danced for hours with that light on me.)
My uncle, a painter, scatters his beautiful paintings about the house. In the dining room there is a couple in a boat taking a romantic stroll through the water. A self-portrait-- reminiscent of his military days--hangs above his desk, and cloud scenery surrounds the skylight. (As kids, whenever we felt like going camping, we pitched a tent in the middle of the kitchen and took turns making cricket sounds.)
Glass doors surround every room. To this day the one that either reveals or conceals what is behind it, depending on the time of day, still confuses me. I can remember sitting with my aunt at night while she watched Unsolved Mysteries in a room filled with a thin layer of see-through protection. I cuddled up to her because she was the only obvious protection I could find.
Downstairs, a lonely piano sits. In my younger years, this was one of my favorite things to try to play. I was curious as to how the thing worked, and, by some coincidence, the latch was always left unhooked so that I could explore the sound of the keys. It always seemed there were mysteries waiting to be unraveled all around us.
These mysteries went on for days in my aunt’s backyard--a never-ending jungle. We played in the sectioned-off desert and tried to catch the resident gigantic turtle to ride him. We picked and ate too much fruit from the groves: apples, grapefruits, and oranges. Our favorite fruit to eat too much of included wild strawberries that grew below the towering trees. Weekly, we raided the rose garden, and I presented my mother with handfuls of baby roses. (I tried to hide cuts from the thorns, but she always saw them and cleaned me up before I went back out to resume play in my fantasy jungle.)
Out in the jungle, the unattached bungalow awaited my presence as I bolted back outside. We hid for hours until someone discovered we were missing and came looking for us. We built forts and pretended that we were at some far away land waiting to be rescued. Our abandoned mini-plane awaited us directly behind the bungalow. Even though the thing had peddles and so many holes from the rust, I just knew we could get it to take off up into the sky one day. Of course, it never did. (I have no idea how they got it back there, or where it ended up.)
On all of those hot summer days, the pool was our first stop. It is a never-ending wave of beautiful blue water, to which, I admit, I have never touched the bottom. (The endless times I tried to touch just my toe--eleven feet down--still haunt me.)
I always knew that as soon as my skin touched the crystal clear mini ocean I’d be sucked in by lasting excitement. I’d float in the pool for hours and stare at the porcelain deer, that stood in their own little world atop a rock. (I always wondered what they thought of us crazy children.) They reminded me of the rides that you put quarters in at the grocery store--only these didn’t move. I imagined they were close enough to the pool to sneak a sip when they got dehydrated. I even created imaginary friends for them--porcelain friends that hung out a few rocks over. It was another little world inside this huge jungle of life.
The feelings I have when I am in the presence of this home make me long to visit as often as I can. Of course now some of the trees have died off, and the jungle isn’t as lively as it once was. The deer are missing a few limbs here and there, and they have spotted holes due to severe rust. The bungalow is now my cousin’s home, and there are no more tents in the far away land. The plane has disappeared as well, and I still don’t have the heart to ask what happened to it. The piano is one of the few things that still remains. It doesn’t sound nearly as good as it used to, but it still works. It has seen its share of time and other little children pounding the noise out of it. The carpet has been torn out a few times since then, and the clouds have started to fade away.
Nowadays, the long trip alone to my unforgettable “home away from home” will never be the same. Dunkin’ Donuts no longer exists, and I usually stay longer than just one day. The house is aging, but the place where I feel more comfortable than I have ever felt will always stay the same. It will never change in my heart. The tiny Wonder Woman I call my aunt waits at the door with wide-open arms for the biggest hug her little body can possibly give.