Dear Joanie,
Tonight I'm writing to you from our little house in the mountains above Boulder. There were a few days in between renters, so Shelby and I came up for a couple of nights. I love being up here in this place I worked so hard to make a home. Beginning this time of year, we try to be outside as much as possible, even though we know we'll have more snow and rain, probably well into May.
Shelby and I hiked up the mountain, where she met two of her friends, Filbert and Lupe. Then I worked in the yard most of the afternoon, clearing out beds. The cherry and apple trees have some tiny buds on them,and the aspen do as well. Miniature daffodils are the only thing blooming right now, although the earth is teasingly sending up little shoots of irises and mountain flax, and the rabbit brush has turned green.
There was a time that I thought this would be the last house that I would live in, that Dougie and I would grow old and older and one of us, then the other would die here. I do hold on to this place, although selling it would be really advantageous to us. I want the children to inherit it and do whatever they want with it, but I hope that maybe one day you'll spend some time here.
This isn't the first time I've left a house and a place I love, often having no control over moving, especially when I was a child and then a teenager. This is one part of my life story--moving from place to place.
When I was growing up, we moved all up and down the Gulf Coast of Texas, following Curt my step-father (that's a whole other story I need to tell you about) from job to job. I was born in Houston at St. Joseph's Hospital in 1939. From that time until about 1950, we moved from Houston to Spring Branch to Robstown to Corpus Christi to Aransas Pass and finally to Beaumont when we moved in with my Grandmother Turner, Amy's mother, when I was in the 6th grade. The one constant in my life at the time was the beach, where we spent a lot of time playing while our parents fished. I've often said that I have salt water in my veins, I so love being at the beach.
I learned how to be tough, always being the new girl in school. I learned how to eat lunch by myself and be alone on the playground at recess looking as if I preferred it to being part of the group of girls sitting in circles together or pushing each other on swings or playing Jacks.
Why did we move around so much? Curt went from job to job and we followed him as things went from well-to-do to average to poverty. The five of us lived in two rooms in Aransas Pass, and that was right before we went to live with Grandmother Turner, whom we called Mama. She was suffering from dementia and we clearly needed a place to live, even though Amy's four remaining sisters (Aunt Christine having died much earlier) and two brothers lived right there in Beaumont. I lived with Mama until I was 18 and got married and left my family for Lake Charles, Lousiana and, later, Holyoke, Massachusetts, when your Grandmother Coco was two years old and your Great Aunt Julie was a newborn.
I have to be quite honest here. It wasn't a happy childhood, all that moving around. Some people look with nostalgia at their growing up, picturing a stable and a happy time. But there is very little I look back on with warmth and happiness.
I have always been searching for a home, trying to make a home. Now I am living in a rather upscale senior living community, on the 6th floor, in an apartment light and airy, with windows looking out at the mountains. It's much like living in a hotel, which isn't a bad thing, mind you, but my heart is still in this little mountain house, where it's now past midnight as I bring this entry to a close.
More to come about my childhood...
Love,
GG Katie
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