Not Quite Anything

The sound of a ban saw fills the air. The clothesline squeaks as my mother tugs it nearer to hang wet clothes on. The back door slams shut with a small squeal of objection. Hot summer sun and steamy, humid air hit my face as I race down the back steps.

Oh. Right. Let me backtrack. Start from the beginning. I’m from South Carolina. You might not know because I don’t sound like it. I’ve little to no accent. My last name does not drip gentile lineage. 

My family is first generation Southern. So it doesn’t count. We don’t hail from the Old South. I didn’t take cotillion lessons. I was never a debutante. I was never in a high school sorority.

That was for my friends. The Van Antwerps from Lancaster. The Walpoles from Beaufort. And the Kirks from Camden. 

My life was always defined by being not quite Southern. And not quite anything else. In between. I always longed for that sense of heritage. Ancestry. But even when my grandparents took me to Massachusetts for the summer and we stayed in my grandfather’s boyhood home, I didn’t feel like I belonged. I certainly wasn’t a Bostonian. Yeah. Maybe my great-greats-greats had come over on the Mayflower, been past presidents, or owned large, thriving companies before the big Crash.

But that wasn’t me. That had little to do with me. 

Thus, when my grandfather packed up the family and moved south to teach law at a local university, my life was destined to be displaced. Uncertain. Unsettled. 

Forever lost was the familiar line broken. The heritage, ancestral connection gone. Now dysfunctional. Displaced. Dispersed.

So I grew up a Collins in a world of Smiths. A liberal in a conservative world. Awkward Alice in a lonely Wonderland. One of a kind. And kind of alone. 

Switching schools didn’t help. Heathwood Pre-K, St. Peter’s Catholic, Brennan Elementary, Crayton Middle School. So many changes. 

The one thing that never changed was the sound of my dad in the garage, cutting away at wood, sawdust collecting at his feet, and the high pitch whine of the circular saw. 

Clothes flapping in the breeze, nature’s hot breath on summer’s neck.

The backyard, overgrown and weedy, beckoning adventure, like an unexplored jungle restraining a monkey’s afternoon cry.

These were my family’s roots. These were my comforts on lonely days. These were.

Until they weren’t.

~ Ms. Green