{"id":9227,"date":"2016-09-23T23:33:02","date_gmt":"2016-09-24T03:33:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=9227"},"modified":"2019-05-15T13:47:39","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T17:47:39","slug":"jagged-edges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/?p=9227","title":{"rendered":"Jagged edges"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I stepped out onto the broken deck,\u00a0I felt a shifting, an instability, as though the whole house was moving\u00a0under my feet. Vertigo… the house weaving as though to spin and suck me down into the earth.<\/span><\/p>\n

Though I wasn’t there when the oak fell<\/a>, the impact hits me whenever I enter the house.<\/p>\n

We call her Azalea, and for nine years she was as beckoning and lovely as that native flower. Coming home to her after trips overseas or just after a weekend in the city, I greeted her with delight –\u00a0Azalea, Azalea!<\/em><\/p>\n

\"azalea-in-autumn\"<\/p>\n

Now she is a\u00a0vortex of\u00a0angularity. Her brokenness breaks me. <\/span><\/p>\n

Jagged teeth in the gaping mouth of the deck floor, the craggy mountains that have erupted\u00a0from the roof, shapes that knife me through.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"jagged-roof-hole\"<\/span><\/p>\n

I laid down on the carpeted angles of the stairs, my abdomen heaving as my arms tried to cradle some stable\u00a0part of her. Every emotion I have ever felt in this house rose\u00a0up from the\u00a0foundation and coated\u00a0me like a poisoned placenta.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I cried like the\u00a0motherless child I am. Azalea, Azalea, Azalea, Azalea, Azalea<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Roaming through each\u00a0room, I ran my fingertips across her precious surfaces, raw wood, polished wood, windowpanes, walls, moaning\u00a0Azalea, Azalea, Azalea, Azalea, Azalea<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"family-room-lower-level\"<\/p>\n

Every room is empty. Yet still I find fragments left behind by the packing crew. Today it was a little drawing of Tbilisi … another place of emotion-laden beauty that I have lost.<\/p>\n

Azalea is still mine, but being separated from her in this violent way, with all its attendant slashes and bleeding, upsets me like the death of a friend. Azalea’s crippling\u00a0seems\u00a0a kind of parable.<\/p>\n

Just as we can never step into the same river twice, so I can never return to the same house, for I am changed by\u00a0the currents of time.<\/p>\n

I kept\u00a0calling out\u00a0her name as I drove away … Azalea, Azalea, Azalea, Azalea, Azalea \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Crying like a hungry ghost.<\/p>\n

Today’s penny is a 2007, the year we found Azalea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I stepped out onto the broken deck,\u00a0I felt a shifting, an instability, as though the whole house was moving\u00a0under my feet. Vertigo… the house weaving as though to spin and suck me down into the earth. Though I wasn’t there when the oak fell, the impact hits me whenever I enter the house. We … read more Jagged edges<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[320],"tags":[18,28,1225,164,62,577],"class_list":["post-9227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shelter","tag-18","tag-change","tag-ghost","tag-house","tag-time","tag-trauma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9227"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9234,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9227\/revisions\/9234"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lisaschnellinger.com\/pennies\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}