OUR HOUSE

I live in the same place I came home from the hospital to on a sweet August morning, the solid mint green house next to the rustic garage that enclosed our bikes and rakes and lawn mowers. The paint on the garage was old and grey, chipped and pealing back but the rapid growth of the vines that I could never remember the name of, hid the dirt stains. The window of it on the left side has a hole in it from a game of catch played years ago and is too sentimental to be repaired. This house wasn’t as much of a house as it is a legacy, passed down on my paternal side, the stomping grounds of my dad and uncles and aunt and the stomping grounds of his dad and siblings. This house is a picture book of memories, with every scrape of a knee on the pavement on the patio in the back yard, every creaky swing on the old swing set that made you feel five hundred pounds when you went on it because of the sound it made, and every warm dish set down on the dining room table with steam and love rising up evaporating into the outdated drop ceiling you knew it wasn’t the first time it had happened! The hot summers night “porch parties” with citronella candles and luminous fireflies made for a night of fun. All of the fluctuations in air pressure travel outward with sister fights, yelling about barrowed clothes and people hogging the bathroom still rest in the air molecules of my up bringing. My home, my childhood, my livelihood, 

This piece was written as an assignment for one of my Creative Writing classes. We read a book of vignettes by Sandra Cisneros called The House on Mango Street. We were later asked to imitate one of her vignettes but with our own twist. I hope you like it!

- Grace <3