I was a PB&J kid.

Yes, by that I mean

 that I liked peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

          But I also mean that I was, and still am,

         An S Personality Type.

I don’t like change; same- old- same- old is best,

Or as Uncle Tim would say with his crooked teeth-

“Don’t fix what ain’t broke.”

          Uncle Tim lived in Alabama.

Ma, Baby Sadie and I saw him a lot

the year we moved there

-The year we moved in with Grammy Jill.

          It was sad to say goodbye

          to my familiar preschool room

          with my familiar trio of friends.

It was also sad to say goodbye to our house:

          The kitchen with sunshine-yellow cabinets

          The hole in the off- white blinds in my room

(I always looked out at the cul-de-sac through it).

          It was hard to say goodbye to

the willow tree in the backyard

that was my secret shady oasis in the summer,

 and ice cave in the winter.

          It was hard to say goodbye to

          The neighborhood cat Maury-

a stray, but part of all of the neighborhood’s families                                                                at heart

          The creak on the seventh step

          The smell of baby powder in the hall,

coming from the nursery.

          It was also sad to say goodbye to daddy,

Especially since I thought it was goodbye ‘till dinner

-dinner that we ate in the car

on the way to Alabama-

To move…To change our lives…

To not live our same-old same-old way.