Some might like to fancy it up, call it a mobile home, but let’s be serious, it was a trailer. None of those trailers had tires, they weren’t going anywhere, they weren’t mobile. I was living in one and trust me, if I could have fired it up and driven off, there were times I would have. The trailer park sat right off a four-lane road, heavily trafficked. I had the fortune of being in Lot 1, right there roadside.
At one time there had been a house next door, sitting on a narrow but extremely long tract of land. Whenever they mowed their grass, it smelled of garlic and onions. It would smell good until it didn’t. It never occurred to me until years later that the smell was the result of that entire property being overtaken with chives, releasing their fragrance as they were cut down. It probably seemed like a good idea at one point, a little patch of chives right outside your door. Until the homeowners grew old and no longer had the patience to control those chives as they spread and spread. The house was torn down and the lot sat empty for years. I imagine a property sandwiched right between a trailer park and a “weekly rates available” motel wasn’t in high demand.
I had a telescope when I lived in that trailer. Big and complicated, nothing I would have bought for myself. My ex-husband had gotten it for me, trying to throw expensive toys in my direction, showing off that he had money when I didn’t. He meant well, knew I liked to sit outside and stare at the moon and stars. The telescope ruined it. It was too heavy, too many knobs and dials, a user manual thick as a dictionary. I felt boxed in, opening myself to scrutiny if I dared sit outside and look at the moon. “Why aren’t you using your telescope?” I anticipated being asked. So, I just quit looking.
Once, my daughter and I decided to walk to the nearest park, to go creek stomping. Some might prefer to say crick, and they would be wrong. I don’t know why we walked, maybe we didn’t have a car available. It wasn’t terribly far, maybe ten blocks, but I can’t imagine we carried any provisions such as snacks or water. I know we didn’t take spare pairs of shoes. It had to have been warm out, the creek mostly in shade, I wouldn’t have wanted it to be too cool as we stomped through the mud and water.
The water level was always unknown; would it be up to our ankles or up to our thighs? Would the creek bed be rocky, risking a twisted ankle or would we be trudging through sludge, each step more challenging as our shoes grew heavier with the mud enveloping them? A good creek would have small areas of running water that I could refer to as waterfalls. My daughter, only five, and not knowing any better, would find that amazing. I do know better, and I still think they were amazing. I’d go find one right now and be quite pleased I believe.
On the best days, we’d see animal tracks in the mud alongside the creek, tiny fish darting through clear waters. The sun would shine through the leaf canopy, bouncing polka dots of light off the water. “God Shines” my daughter used to call those rays of sun when she was attending Catholic school. In later years, when reminded of that, she would tell us to shut the fuck up.
It was a miserable walk home, grit, and mud caking our socks, grinding our heels against our soaking wet shoes. I don’t remember if we broke down and walked shoeless. It would have been a risky undertaking, walking along the road towards home, maybe stepping on a wad of gum or broken glass or a used condom.
The good thing about returning to our trailer in our filthy state was that it was already pretty shitty. Gold shag carpet likely installed before I was even born, scarred linoleum in the kitchen. There was no one to yell at us about tracking mud in the house when we got home.
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