Control: The Willow Tree

I remember a house the Lewises once owned in West Bloomfield, Michigan. We had a nice, spacious house because Mom worked as a librarian and Dad taught tennis and both made plenty of money. We didn’t worry about going to restaurants weekly or going to plays or traveling on vacation a couple times a year: money didn’t matter much yet. Flash forward to the present and we are more careful with our money — but that’s a story for another time.

We lived there when I was third through eighth grade. It was on Old Dominion Court, and behind the house was an enormous willow tree with marvelous tiny leaves that seemed to perpetually be falling. We had a tiny creek behind that with a little tiny bridge to cross it. When we tried to go into the creek I wisely told my sister that it was a foot deep, max.

“It’s called eyes, sis,” I said.

She put her leg into the water. The sand collapsed and her entire leg and waist fell into the water. She looked at me and screamed.

“It’s called eyes, huh, Dalton! It’s called eyes,” she said.

I remember having a bedroom with a wooden floor. I would run around in my room, pretending to be Rocky and winning imaginary boxing match after match. I played “Eye of the Tiger.” It was one of maybe three songs that I knew and liked.

A trail went around our neighborhood, and it was spacious and had many trees and bushes and ran along the creek. I remember walking along it with a friend from that era, playing on a jungle gym, and listening to Livin on a Prayer. I totally thought that it meant Prairie and not Prayer. I am stupid sometimes.

I read a zillion books in my room. I remember, at one point, when I took a book that I loved and ripped apart the first fifty pages in a fit of anger to express that something was wrong with my world. I read pulp fantasy and some sci-fi and war stories, the kind with grizzled veterans fighting brutal battles a couple times a book and complaining about the inefficiency of the military and the government.

We had a booth in that home in the kitchen. We thought that it was the coolest thing ever to sit and eat at a booth in our own home. I remember reading Terry Brooks and eating cheese and then realizing that the cheese had gotten moldy. I didn’t know to look for that yet. I remember going on a bus to the middle school and dreading the start of school, enjoying the last few minutes before making it to school.

We had a basketball hoop outside, and I loved to shoot hoops there. I would throw the basketball at the hoop countless times, running around and trying to get better at playing. I played a lot until high school started — and then I stopped practicing and got worse very quickly.

Towards the third grade I went to the basement and played with my toys, imagining huge battles and creating scenarios in my mind. I watched the fights play out and made certain to have a happy ending every time, and I delighted in playing out fantasies about good guys fighting bad guys.

I remember a time when I played basketball and looked at my mom. “I’m sorry, Mom. I got into a fight.”

“Honey, I thought we got past all the fights,” Mom said. “I’m ashamed of you. You know that fighting isn’t the answer for anything.”

“He spit on me,” I said.

“No,” she said. “That doesn’t matter. You need to not hurt people, no matter what. I don’t want you doing this going forward. I thought we got past all this.”

I got into one more fight. Someone was behind me on the bus, messing with me and making fun of me for something. I punched him and he laughed at my inability to do any damage to him. I decided then that fighting was for better fighters than me unless I trained to fight — and I decided to forgo fighting and stand up for myself in more peaceful ways. I remember leaving that house for the house in Libertyville, Illinois, and I distinctly remember loving the home. I will never see it again, and it certainly wouldn’t look the same if I went back there. I just know that I hope to never forget that home — or the memories of it.

Thanks, and take care, friends.