Sewing room at Gram’s house.

The Florida home with no address
Sometimes, your memories are other people’s memories. Everyone knows the story, it’s my mother’s favorite, but I do not remember the events. I like running around and investigating new things. My sister is terrified of snakes. The chase involves twists and turns through the sandy back yard and ends at the grimy back door. My feet are covered in wet soil. The mud oozes between my feet as I continue to run, garter snake in one hand, while giggles fall from my mouth. The snake is slammed into the screen door. The half on my sister’s side wriggles. She screams. It was a happy time, or so they say. It makes my mom smile, so I’m elated to hear her rendition “just one more time.”

15 Corwin Avenue
Black carpenter ants crawl across my face in the middle of the night. Some nights, I don’t bother to brush them off as they tickle my cheeks, scurrying toward survival. I look, instead to the bookcase, lined with Funk & Wagnalls and World Book encyclopedias that no one but me reads. There is a fine layer of dust covering Funk & Wagnalls. I am only five years old and cannot understand the words I read within its pages. Mom reassures me one day I will. The World Book has pictures and shiny pages to stare at for hours on end. Their spines serve as a useful means for dissociation before I reach double digits. They take me someplace far from here so I don’t have to hear my own screaming.
In the cellar outside, I have watched the dust pillow in the air after a scuffle and shouts of “stop.” When I could fight no more, I watched individual particles of dust twinkle in the sunlight from a tiny cellar window. Perhaps a small piece of the universe protected me from the pain and horror with its glittering show.

19 Corwin Avenue
Dust, debris, detritus remnants of the Great Depression. My grandmother taught her children well. Keep everything because you might need it later. It’s a skill I managed to avoid, until Covid. Three boxes reside in my basement, brimming with empty water bottles. I might need them one day. I won’t, but I might. My grandmother’s home was filled with everything – magazines, newspapers, Tupperware, and patched up clothes to “mend and make do” – because you never know when they might come in handy. We only ever swept the kitchen. I suppose the dust in the rest of the house was laced with gold. Clean to keep the bugs out, except the carpenter ants didn’t understand. They would run over your toes while you were trying to watch M*A*S*H. The spiders were allowed to survive. They eat the bugs we don’t like, she would say. It was not uncommon for a daddy long legs to plop down on your head. Don’t kill it. That’s bad luck. Move it gently, somewhere else.

Nancy’s Attic
Statistically we were homeless. No place to call home but a small area at the top of a second cousin’s house. Mom and I cleaned the attic for days to make a small space for us and my sister. The gunk and filth were never truly erased and the dust bunnies returned each day. We did what we could to keep the cockroaches from visiting. We slept with the lights on. My spidey sense could hear them, just out of sight, rustling around in the crud that remained, wanting to be part of us. The granules of grime would sometimes shimmer from the artificial sun plugged into the wall. I was too old to be tucked in, but, now, it was a delight for Mom turn me into a burrito, so only I was inside.

12 Wallkill Avenue
The attic was split in two by a flimsy wall and door. My bedroom was at the top of the stairs. Mom’s boyfriend’s son, Dean, came and went as he pleased, whenever he wanted to show his customers the six-foot pot plant on the other side of the door. He liked insects, which helped his business grow. The earth and loam from his product left shadowy gray ashes on the darkened wooden floor. Blue carpet the shade of a beautiful day always had a path of pallid powder to the door. I vacuumed nearly every day to erase the footsteps from unrecognizable people with dusty, feculent shoes, who entered my realm unannounced and unwelcome.

33rd Street
A duplex full of depression and despair. Paper-thin walls enhance the echoes of voices of unwanted conversations. There is little money in my pocket and few possessions to fill the home. The open space within is a reminder of how much nothing a person can be. Too many windows. Footsteps reverbate within the walls, projecting the emptiness and a larger desire to be alone. The soft impressions in the soil outside is the only evidence a human may reside inside.

411 East Main Street
The clutter follows us like a lost puppy looking for a permanent home. It continually grows into a beautiful home for dust mites. I didn’t want to move back here. Little paths to maneuver, a scene copied and repeated with each new search for a better place. Holes worn in 40-year old carpet compliment the holes in the walls. Muck and dreck stick to appliances and stain the souls within. The crud lined on the shower walls reveals a body that can never be truly cleaned. Darkened rooms with blackout curtains for night shift workers encourage tiny critters to take up residence. The light never shines in here.

401 Sandra Court
My home is frequently cleaned. The spiders are allowed to stay. After each rainstorm, I walk the driveway, looking for washed up earthworms. I gently pick them up and place them back in the lush green grass. They shouldn’t be out in the sun to burn to death. No one should suffer in such a way. The Great Plains are full of dust. I do my bit to keep it outside, lest it accumulate, kicking my allergies into overdrive and burning my eyes.

33 County Highway 17
The clutter never truly goes away. It just gets packaged better into bags and boxes and plastic containers. I don’t like to visit. The dirt, dust, and decades of newspapers piled high in the corner envelop the senses. The stench of newspaper ink mixed with black mold on the walls is a familiar, yet not missed sight. Mom has been poor my entire life. Everyone until now swept her away like unwanted dust. She’s happy. Is it right to complain about the mold?

Northern Metropolitan
Mom awakens every day in a dark, dingy room, alone. The silence is deafening to a soul who sings with others. It took her six decades to find happiness and joy. Now, there is nothing. Is she even still in there? Has she given up? Does she know what she has lost? Does she care? The dried blood on her arm, unaccounted bruises, and soiled bed show a lack of compassion. There is no dust here. I wish there was.