I pick up the last bag near the front door. Routinely I wipe down the spot that the bag sat. My eyes soft focus onto the ray of light cast on the sandalwood laminate. I get lost in a day dream, wondering if I remember my first move. I don’t. The first house I remember was in a suburb outside of San Diego. Of course, at five, I didn’t know that.

I remember small things about the life there. I remember the next door neighbor girl got hit by a car. I can’t quite recall if she was on her bike or if that’s another memory of me riding down the road with no hands. My memory is foggy but when I went to visit her one day, she was laid on the floor. She couldn’t move. Her name was April. I often wonder about her. I never imagine her older, as teenager maybe, or in her twenties with kids, or a career girl. Come to think of it, I don’t envision anyone I knew there outside of the bubble we were in.

I remember Margaret down the street. Margaret had all the great barbies, dream houses, cars, and pools. She had a fantastic bull dog and house was huge. It’s funny, even then I remember being envious. She was the cool kid on the block, and I knew it. In contrast, I knew who the bad kids were, too. One of them was my brother. He was always in fist fights with the other bad kid on the block. I don’t know if there were that many really, I just know he was always in trouble for fighting.

I remember riding the bus to school. I never remember getting on the bus, or getting off of it. Maybe there was never a bus at all, but I do remember the drive up the hill. I always thought it was fancy with the road split and trees growing down the middle of it surrounded by concrete curbs. I remember playing at school, and sitting in a circle counting far into the hundreds while trying to tie my shoes. The rest of kids moved on to tables to color and I sat there tying my shoes and counting.

My mother through the years told me stories of our time in Poway. Things I don’t remember at all. She told me stories about me running away, and making it down the street on my tricycle. She told me about a brother that died when I was three and he was seven. You’d think I’d remember something like a whole other brother, but I don’t. There are pictures of us together and I do not know him.

There are there solid memories I do have. I know they have shaped me and I can point traits I have now that are directly correlated to events from this time in my life. I remember square mirrors glued on the wall. The were gold speckled and would refract all the light and make me dizzy. I loved them. What I loved most was the way my mom was happy, painting felt fish to hang on the mirrors. She would laugh with her friends, friends I cannot place or even picture now. Honky tonk music would be playing or almost always Bobby Vinton. The room was heavy with smoke, but at the time, in the seventies, it was just the way it was. Sometimes, in summer, we’d sit outside in the sprinklers and eat watermelon, and I would always find myself back in the house, staring at the mirrors finding all the things that were refracted. The velvet Elvis picture that made no sense to me always stood out but also the running horses tapestry. I know the felt fish, the Elvis portrait and horse tapestry were not great works of art but they made me happy. They were part of a happy family. To this day, I still create crappy art that makes me really happy when I’m lost in the creation.

Another solid memory is the first belt spanking I ever received. It was terrifying. I remember that I got in trouble for lying. I also remember I wasn’t lying. There was a steep mound of dirt behind our house that we were strictly banned from. I don’t know who banned us, but it was against the rules. I remember yelling at my brother, screaming, and he wouldn’t come. I was partially up the hill and changed my mind about following him further. I turned around returned home. As I was approaching the house I saw my dad standing in the doorway. It’s the only memory I have of him in that house. He is not out of place, and I know he is my dad and in retrospect it all makes sense. But, I also knew I was in big trouble.

You know you’re in the biggest trouble when all three of your names are used at once. This time it was only two, but it was with a tone that may as well have been three. There was a short conversation about how I wasn’t playing on the hill. An even shorter conversation about how it was really my brother. Then there was the belt and me laid across my father’s lap. I remember the first sting and the cry echoing off the mirrors. I remember the next one landed over my hands as I covered my ass hoping to lessen the next swing. My hands were moved and I stopped counting. I went to my room. My special strawberry pink room. The pink I picked out just for me. To this day, I have a hard time enjoying pink. I like pink. It is a fantastic color, most shades of it anyway, but claiming pink as my favorite color has yet to be said.

The final memory I have of our time there was the strawberry roan mustang. Sometimes I remember his name, but it escapes me far more than I remember it. It was always dry and dusty driving down the road to see him. I am not really sure where he lived, but the memory lingers when I day dream was a big corral in an open field. The people that cared for him when we weren’t there are just silhouettes made of light in the memory. He was the most beautiful thing ever. He was a real life horse toy. Breyer worthy. One of my mom’s friend’s had an entire farm with lots of horses, and other livestock. I loved going there and I don’t know if this strawberry roan was on the same farm or not.

When we would visit the farm I sometimes got to hang out with the two girls. They were in their teens. They listened to great music that was upbeat. While they would curl my hair and show me lip gloss songs like “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” would play. I would sing it pretty emphatically never knowing what any of the lyrics really meant. teenage girls. When I was hanging out with them, I felt as cool as Margaret, maybe even a little cooler, because I had real life horses to play with.

I don’t know when we left that town, that house, that street, that farm or my dad. I don’t even remember moving. The memories abruptly end and we live somewhere else, Ventura. I am shaken awake from the hypnotic trance of the sun rays on the floor just as abruptly. My eyes are a bit wet, my heart a bit weak missing my parents, missing that strawberry roan, missing my pink bedroom. I step over the threshold and close the door. I turn the lock and walk to the moving truck.