I suppose that title should read, “Past Life in Boxes”. Yesterday David and I went to the warehouse in Canton, Mass. in which over sixteen years of our lives repose–and not in splendor. In 1994, with sons five and two in tow, we moved to London. I won’t say anymore about that because, after these months of writing, if the subject of being a stranger in a strange land were a dead horse, it would be glue by now.
The Return
It rained today as Emma and I walked to school. It had started in the night, great gusts of wind and rain hammering at the windows in my bedroom under the eaves. Emma, as used to be the case when David traveled more, slept with me. It had been months since she’d joined me. Her long legs migrated to my side of the mattress and her heat woke me before the rain. Only a few inches shorter than I am, Emma had suddenly taken over not just my bed but my body, in a way. She sprawled, jack-knifed, splayed and scrambled in her dreams until I had to shove her away. I lay in the dark listening to the storm pass through Cambridge and (after the obligatory dead of night stumble to the bathroom) thought about what I’d do the next day if the rain continued.