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The Tangerine Star of Tunisia Road
Some lights go out. But the right ones leave their glow behind.
They say that seven is the age of reason — the age when you’re old enough to start truly developing a sense of self. This makes sense to me, as my memories from that age (and just after) are among some of my most poignant and vivid, even if I’m not entirely sure why.
There was a street lamp on the corner of Tunisia Road where we lived on post after we first moved to California, just a few steps away from our little home. Our house was the kind of house everyone in the military gets when they’re lucky — comfortable but also forgettable enough that you didn’t even realize you were supposed to forget it.
But at that age, everything still seemed magical and sacred. My room wasn’t just an ordinary room in an ordinary house. It was the hallowed sanctum where I spent hours organizing my toys and brushing my dolls’ hair. It was my first little office and creative studio, the place where I first fell in love with drawing with my pencils and typing up stories on the old, secondhand typewriter my parents had given me for the purpose.
I was used to military life, so I technically knew the house and my place in it were temporary. But somehow that didn’t matter. When you’re only seven or eight, even a summer feels…
