The Remains of a Poet

Was there ever a time the living room wasn’t full of boxes?

Was there ever a time a Christmas tree stood where the treadmill is now, and I taught myself piano facing the same wall I now face when I eat in the dining room, and a door sat in the now empty doorframe that leads from the dining room to the kitchen?

Was there ever a time when the now noxious room my uncle sleeps was called “The School Room” and my mom would sit in the middle of a futon with my sisters on either side and I would lay across the top while she read?

Was there ever a time when there were three windows in my sister’s room where now there’s only one, and above these hung a valance of carousel horses to match the wallpaper border lining the top of the wall, and the carpet was rough and a hideous color?

Was there ever a time when the shower curtain in the downstairs shower was a plain and faded pink, and my mom and I would have to walk down the stairs, past the front door, and down the hall to that bathroom in our towels to shower?

Was there ever a time that the kitchen was blue, and our microwave sat on the counter and only had two buttons, and the cupboards were plain wood, and the dishwasher and refrigerator were off-white, and the Kitchen Aid was yellow, and the floor an ugly, sticky linoleum?

Was there ever a time when the family room was cut in half, and the half by the window was our dining area, and we extended the table weirdly into the family room on holidays and during parties?

Was there ever a time when we pulled beanbags in front of the fireplace in the winter and drank eggnog, and made fudge and caramel corn and then gave it away to our friends and the neighbors?

Was there ever a time when my room was peach, and my closet doors opened out instead of sliding open, and I slept in a waterbed and kept all my Bernstein Bear books on the shelves of its headboard?

Was there ever a time when my sisters shared the room next door and I’d bang on the wall at night to tell them to shut up so I could sleep?

Was there ever a time when my shelves were filled with books and stuffed animals and glass dogs, and a green dresser sat to one side of my desk (though God knows why since I’ve never kept clothes in my room), and I could hide myself in the toy chest in my closet?

Was there ever a time that I could fit in my wardrobe or the linen closet, or fit under the coffee table (long since gone), and a yardstick was not much smaller than I?

Was there ever a time when the patio floor was half concrete, half bits of old carpet, and one whole wall was rusting metal shelves, yet the awesome blocks, and the Fisher Price kitchen and hair salon and dollhouse, and the PlayMobile ranch and fort made it a child’s paradise?

Was there ever a time where a pomegranate tree grew where a rosebush now blooms, and the tree outside the kitchen window was much larger and dropped disgusting-smelling berries every fall, and a peppertree flourished where a stunted orange tree now languishes, and I thought a bloodstained old man lived in the hedges surrounding the central power controller in our backyard?

Was there ever a time when there were swings in the backyard, and we actually walked on the grass, and we pretended to go down the manhole or through the mailbox to emerge into another world?

Was there ever a time when the house rang with laughter, and children played, and memories made?

Was there ever a time when people actually lived here, instead of just eating and sleeping and existing?

It’s been sixteen years but really eighteen, more than my whole life though, twenty-one years, and twenty-three, and thirty-six. But it’s a been over a year since this house was a home, more than that really, years since any of it, since all of it. Years since the caramel corn and the eggnog and the fire and the Christmas tree and the tea parties and the piano lessons and the swings and the patio and the best game ever invented. And all I want now is out, out of the oppressiveness, out of the room with the bare walls and empty shelves, out of the house with the stained, faded carpet, out of it all.

Maybe it’s better this way, better that I was forced to put away the stuffed animals and the glass dogs, better that I was forced to do away with the remnants of my childhood in one swift stroke, because that’s what this house is, my childhood, and tomorrow it will be gone. But I hate to think that this is what I’ll remember: boxes and bare walls and that oppressive emptiness.

Was there ever a time the living room wasn’t full of boxes? I’m not even sure now that there was.

I've been putting off doing this because, to be honest, I didn't want to follow the trend, to be like everyone else, to fall into the cliche.  But I've been going over all these memories the past few days, and even though I know this is so late that no one will read it, I still have to write them down, so here goes:

I remember when I first heard of Harry Potter, back in the Spring of 2000.  I was ten at the time, and I didn't understand what all the fuss was about over a book.  I remember what a huge deal it was when Goblet of Fire was released a few months later, just weeks before I turned eleven.  It was all over the papers, and again, I didn't understand the phenomenon.  But then my sister, who was fourteen at the time, decided that she wanted to find out what the big deal was, so she read SS.  She loved it, and gave it to me, and I guess I can't really say that HP showed me that reading could be fun because I stopped reading about halfway through The Journey from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.  I got frustrated that I couldn't pronounce a lot of the words, such as "Privet" (I was reading it "Private") and "Diagon", and then I got to "prefect" and read it "perfect" and completely lost patience.  I was just like, "What the hell is a 'perfect'?  Brits are weird!" and threw the book down.  I guess it's probably a good thing that I stopped before I got to Hermione.  But then my mom got me the books on tape and I just flew through them.  I think the tapes were good for me, because I have a tendency to read ahead in books, but the tapes ensured that I was always faked out the way Jo intended.  It's hard to remember, rereading SS for the fifteenth time, what it was like reading the first time and being totally faked out with Snape and Quirrell.  But the past few days I have remembered.

I remember being shocked when I found out that Quirrell was after the stone, and revolted when it turned out that Voldemort was sticking out of his head.

I remember laying in bed listening to CoS, completely terrified as Jim Dale hissed in a bone-chilling whisper, "I smell blood.  I smell blood.  Let me rip you.  Let me tear you.  Let me kill you..."  I remember totally buying into Tom Riddle, and never figuring out that the monster was a snake, and audibly gasping when it turned out Riddle was also Voldemort.

I remember believing that Sirius was evil.  I remember completely falling in love with Lupin and feeling just like Hermione after he hugged Sirius ("I DON'T BELIEVE IT!"), only to, a few chapter later, fall in love with Sirius as well.  I remember being like, "OMG, Scabbers killed Harry's parents?"  I remember hating the fact the Wormtail escaped and that Sirius had to go on the run again (something I still hate every time I read PoA).

I remember absolutely adoring Moody after he turned Malfoy into a ferret.  I remember that sick feeling I got in the pit of my stomach when Harry said to Ron, "You might even have a scar now, if you're lucky.  That's what you want, isn't it?"  I remember every desperate moment of the first task.  I remember crying when Harry and Ron made up, and again when Harry said, "They've got Ron?" and dashed off to the lake.  I remember never seeing Hermione and Krum coming.  I remember Cedric dying and not giving a damn.  I remember the horror of Voldemort's rebirth.  I remember the biggest fake out of all, Moody really being evil.  Even when he turned out to be an imposter, I still couldn't believe it.  But most of all, I remember Jim Dale saying, "What would come would come, and he would have to meet it when it did. ... This has been Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire..." and shrieking, "THAT'S IT?" and my mom being like, "What?  What?"

I remember being fourteen, and my grandma bringing me home OotP.  I remember curling up in the corner of my mom's couch and reading for three days straight, pausing only to eat and sleep.  I remember reading through the first three chapters and being like, "I can't take it anymore!" and flipping to the back to see who died.  I remember sobbing when I saw it who it was.  I remember hating Umbridge with the fire of a thousand suns.  I remember loving the D.A.  I remember despising Cho.  I remember being super annoyed with Harry.  I remember loving the Marauder scene.  I remember crying all over again when I got to the death scene.  I remember crying through the last three chapters.  I remember crying when I finished it.

I remember being not quite sixteen, and HBP arriving in all its purple-and-green glory, and clutching it and jumping up and down and shrieking, "IT CAME!  IT FINALLY CAME!" and my cousin being like, "What is wrong with you?"   I remember being really annoyed that Harry got over Sirius's death after two weeks at Privet Drive because "life's too short", when it had been two years for me and I wasn't over it!  (It's been four years now, and I'm still not over it, and damn it, I want some Sirius mourning!  "Life's too short" what the hell is that?  He was your freaking godfather and it's your fault he died!  Cedric got a whole book of angst {the longest book, in fact}, and you didn't even like him, and it wasn't really your fault he died, and Sirius only gets one shouting scene, a very good line {"He didn't want to go at all!"} and a passing reference!  What the hell is that?  Damn it, I WANT SOME SIRIUS MOURNING!)  I remember being totally faked out with Slughorn and Snape and Potions and D.A.D.A. (Come on, everyone was faked out the first time.)  I remember being rather irritated with Ron and Lavender.  I remember not realizing what Draco's mission was until he was on the tower with Dumbledore.  I remember feeling so betrayed by Snape!  I remember sitting on my bed with my mouth open for a full minute trying to process that for five years I'd really believed Snape was good and then he'd killed Dumbledore.  Just like that.

And now, in a few hours, it'll all be over, and Deathly Hallows will just be another string of memories.  It's so hard to process.  In some ways, I suppose, I have completely grown up with Harry.  I started this journey when I was eleven, and I'm ending just before I turn eighteen, just like I imagine Harry will.  It's strange really.  I've been waiting for this for nearly seven years, and now that it's here, I'm not sure I really want it to all be over.  It's like a part of my life gone.  Gah, that's insane!

Now's the part where I say something inspirational or funny, or I quote some part of the books that fits, talking about "nitwit", or flighty temptresses, or how I'm not worried because I'm with you.  But I can't bring myself to do it.  Partly because it's just another cliche, but mostly, I think, because it will make the end too real.