one in 12 Americans...

...owns an RV. Is that right? I hear that off of an infomercial about luxury RV parks.

But this is what new thing I have learned since being home in Houston. I have to fight the urge to slump onto the couch in front the tv, which I haven't had exposure to for months, and turn off my brain. I don’t know what to do with myself. I am a kid here and I am never allowed to forget it. I dug out the old rusted bikes in our garage and my dad pumped up the tires. When I told him that I intended to ride around in the street my dad said no, you will get hurt. When my grandmother asked me to help her with a weed-turned-tree, I thought she was carrying a hatchet for me to use to chop it down. No, I would only hurt myself. I don’t know what I’m doing. I was there to watch her hack it up and then drag what was left away. I am told constantly that I am too young, unable, not experienced enough, when I know this not to be true and yet there is no way that I can express my ideas or abilities because at home I might as well still be in middle school. But the sadness is there: the soft intonation that I have been long missed. Why did you go away for so long? When are you coming back to stay?

I can’t. I will be here for three weeks but I can’t live where my life is not my own. And that breaks my heart.

So instead I keep house. And clean. I gave my sister a bath and cut her fingernails. I washed her bathtub and sink. I helped my grandmother install a safety rail on the edge of the tub. I helped her label her video discs. I helped thread the sewing machine. I helped my dad pay the bills. I sweep the floors. I packed up all the newspapers for recycling.

And the aquarium. When I was home last in the winter, I was felt so sorry for our turtle. The filter to its tank had long stopped working and it swam in a half evaporated tank of filthy water. No one had time to look out for Mr. Munchie. My older sister and I took it to a pond in a golf course down in Herman Park (I was intimidated by all the mothers with children at the pond outside the zoo) and set Mr. Munchie free. Well, as free as a pond in the middle of golf course in the middle of the huge urban metroplex can be. How can we keep you when you cannot have clean water and care? So, this bilgy tank has stayed as it was since we let loose Mr. Munchie on the world. A film of fuzzy white stuff was new though. I took the whole operation down, washed out the filter, cleaned the marbles, scooped out the water, scrubbed down the tank, and sanded the rusting stand. Tomorrow I'll paint the stand and get some filter cartidges. I think I'll move our sadly neglected fish from their five gallon tank to this big one. But should anything or anyone really be confined to small spaces? Could you make it outside the box that keeps you safe? Will you still know who you are? Tell me Mr. Munchie, do you miss me?