My parents bought the white duplex, moving us into the right side and renting out the left. It was a turn-of-the-century home, similar to my grandparents’ one, with a large front porch and an unheated second floor. I lived here longer than in any other house in my life: two calendar and school years. My sister and I both walked to school – a mile for me and a bit farther for her. My parents converted a downstairs room into their bedroom, giving my sister, brother, and me our own bedrooms upstairs. There was a small field off our back yard, and a river full of rocks to jump less than a mile away. It was just off Rte 11, a working class street in a poor town; I could ride my bike to Lone Star Avenue to visit friends and grandparents, or head on the path behind the A&P and end up at the town cemetery. It wasn’t perfect, but I loved it anyway.

A young couple with two babies rented the left side of the house. They had a beat-up car and no phone, and they argued. They left after a while, first the man and then the woman and kids. My father was out to sea for the better part of a year, but even a child my age could tell the difference between a loving if absent father and an absentee parent. It was my first close-up view of a family falling apart and falling through the cracks. It wasn’t my last.

I think about the side-by-side living experiences. Our homes were mirror images of each other, but our home life strikingly different. To this day, I look at the houses I pass while walking to town and I wonder what life is like for the people living behind the facades. I say a quiet prayer for the love and happiness of those who live there.

Lord, bless this home and all who enter it. Amen.

The Kindergarten year that began in the sunny Hawaiian September picked up in New Hampshire’s snowy January. My parents rented a house on Gray Avenue, across a local park from Lone Star Avenue. There were lots of kids in the neighborhood and some good trees to climb. In Autumn, my friends and I raked fallen leaves into multi-color floor plans – houses that lasted until a good breeze blew them to pieces. But the best part of my Gray Avenue home was what was in back of it. Well hidden from the street, stretching back from the top of the 10′ high backyard retaining wall, was a magic forest.

Like most enchanted lands, this one had a disguised entrance: a cinderblock wall marking the property line, separating our back yard from the next door neighbor’s. Block by block, the wall height decreased as it extended toward the street, until it was only one block high – a staircase to the springy pine needle floor beneath the tall firs. A few silent steps under the trees put the houses out of view. The light filtered through pine branches and all was quiet. A few minutes of resting among tree roots was rewarded with bird song and rabbit sightings. Ants moved over fallen branches covered in lichen and toadstools. Little hollows were scattered throughout the forest, full of pine scent and rabbit holes.

In the middle of it all, at the end of an upward winding drive, was a fairy cottage made of wood. In the heat and light midday, its red/brown shingles were bathed in the green of sunlight through the evergreen canopy. It was a most welcoming and most mysterious dwelling. I never caught sight of the forest guardians who lived there, but a few times at twilight I thought I saw two silhouettes against a picture window.

The last time I ventured into the forest behind Gray Avenue, I was thirteen years old – many years after I lived there. The staircase was still there, the roofs of Gray Avenue disappeared after a few paces, and my footsteps made no sound and left no mark on the needle strewn ground. The hollows, holes, ants, and birds welcomed me back. The wooden cottage still stood in the middle, lit by the forest filtered light. It was still there, this refuge just beyond the ordinary backyards on an average street in a beat-up old town. Still hidden to most, always welcoming to those who seek it in childlike faith and wonder.

But only a child, or one who will become like a child, will ever think to seek beauty and peace on Gray Avenue, just past the back wall and up a few cinder block steps.

There was a shared carport in the front of my second Hawaiian home – recently built adjoining duplexes in Navy housing. I used to climb one of the supporting poles a couple of times each day – there were no trees big enough to climb in that new development. I loved the higher vantage point because I could see the top of our car, and I’d touch the ceiling before shimmying back down to the ground.

People inside either of the duplex units couldn’t see what was going on in the carport, which led to problems with Neil, the boy who lived to the left of me. He knew I wasn’t allowed to go on his side of the carport, so he would run over onto my side when I was climbing and hit me with a stick or throw a ball at me. By the time I got down and ran after him, he was already back on his side, beyond my reach. Sometimes, he’d run back into his house, sometimes he’d laugh and do a victory dance just out of my reach. His parents never bothered to correct such behavior, so he got away with it.

When I told my mother about the whole thing, she did something I didn’t expect: she change the rules. “If Neil hits you, you can go on his side of the carport and hit him back.” It wasn’t long afterward that I was up the pole, and Neil ran over and hit me with a stick. As he expected, I jumped down and chased after him. But this time, I didn’t stop at the midpoint of the carport. He was doing a little dance just a few yards past, not even looking at me. For the first time, I ran across the line and shoved him to the ground. He was more surprised than hurt, but landing on the cement gave him a few bumps and scrapes. It was the only time I returned violence for violence because he never crossed the line again.

Had there been a peaceful way to settle the matter, I’m sure my mother would have taken it. In the absence of an alternative, turnabout became fair play. There are consequences to throwing stones and wielding sticks, and sometimes those consequences knock you on your bottom.

Every so often, I wonder if Neil learned that picking on others – even the little girl who lives next door – is harmful to self. Sometimes it’s a scraped knee and bruised shins. Sometimes it’s invisible, but even more harmful: the growing fear that the world takes no notice of you. Violence never makes you bigger or more visible, it makes you smaller and your true self even more obscured. It’s an irony that the biggest bully on the playground has the smallest and weakest sense of self.