Where do you live, people ask. What is your address?
Stonebridge, I say. Because the actual number doesn't matter.
My street is my home. My house is where I have to go, but only
when the sky becomes a black blanket, with stars like moth holes.
And my neighbors are my real family, so I have dozens of mothers
and dads and sisters and brothers. So our parents, who didn't
understand then and still don't understand now, would be forced to
ask us Where are you going tonight? To Dan's? Pete's? Little Joey?
Big Joey? And we would smile at each name was said, almost like
we were getting a prize, because they're friendship was the
greatest gift of all.
The best thing of all about my home, though, is its name.
We spent hours looking for a bridge made out of stone. We knew it
had to be somewhere, because "Why would they name a street after
somethingthat doesn't exist?" So we looked. We even looked in
the woods where the homeless people lived, with their broken
couch and stone stove,which later became our Olympic obstacle course.
And yet no matter how hard we looked and who we asked,
we found out the truth. That whoever made our street had lied to us.
And there was no Stone Bridge.
