Red Room Where the Writers Are

I've said good-bye to many things in my life: clothes that didn't fit me anymore, homes, schools, I said goodbye to pets I loved, and to my grandparents who I adored. Yet nothing was more bittersweet when I said good-bye to Pleasant Hill, California, the town I lived in for twenty-seven years.

The odd thing was I had wanted to leave Pleasant Hill for years. I did leave in 2004 for Mills College in Oakland, but went back regularly to visit my mom. In 2005, we got our chance to leave. "You're not going to be a Pleasant Hill girl anymore!" Meranda told me. Yep. It was hitting me that I was going to be a Lafayette woman.

That last month was finals. I only had one exam and a writing portfolio due, so I found myself walking a lot around town. I visited my old school. I walked around the neighborhood I lived in for twenty years. It had seen so many changes. The Sandpiper card store, where Sericea and I would buy stickers, was gone. In its place was a sushi place. Also gone was Einstein Video, my favorite video place before I got Netflix. Round Table was still there, along with the cleaners, where once a week I dropped off something of my mother's that needed cleaning.

I found myself walking down the road to the duplex I'd lived in. It had been fixed up and it had a porch swing and a garden. We asked for years if we could have a porch swing, our landlady always said no. An American flag blew in the late fall wind.

Downtown Pleasant Hill. There wasn't much to say good-bye to. It had been redeveloped, rezoned, and redone several years back. At first it was great because there was a Borders, but there were times I missed the old Pleasant Hill. I walked down the streets, where the War Memorial was, remembering there used to be a little toy store across the street that sold candy and bouncy balls. Now it was an Indian restaurant. The bowling alley where kids hung out after school was now the Century movie theater. Gone was the Greyhound bus station, where sometimes I dreamed I would go in, ask for a one way ticket to New York, and be on my way, leaving Pleasant Hill behind.

Down the street were more shops. There used to be an old fashioned drive-in called Evie's that I loved. They actually had girls in skates come to cars and take orders, like the fifties. Mom and I went there about once a week. Before that it was an A&W, and I used to love going there and drinking root beer with the A&W Bear orange straw. It was demolished for the new downtown.

Next door to Evie's was a motel. It wasn't really a touristy motel, it was a motel where the homeless people, if you had twenty or thirty dollars, could live. They would go across the street to the grocery store and get food for the night. If they couldn't get a room, they would sleep on the bus stop bench. The motel was still there, still doing good business.

Back near my apartment was the library. I saved that one three days before I moved, making sure I got my library books on time. I knew it was going to be the hardest good-bye. Even before I worked there, I loved going in there, loved the smell of old books. It had changed as well since I stopped working there. The old desktop where clerks stood to check out books were gone; now five self-check machines stood there in its place. The clerks and librarians I worked with quit, transferred or retired. I went into the Baldwin Room and remembered how Granddad would come in once a day to see me, then sit at his favorite blue plastic chair and read a mystery.

I knew I would come back to Pleasant Hill, that it wasn't good-bye forever. I did know that things would change even more. The oddest part would be I wouldn't be there to see it up close.

But I can see the sun's settin' fast,
And just like they say, nothing good ever lasts.
Well, go on, I gotta kiss you goodbye,
Go on now and say goodbye to my town, to my town.
I can see the sun has gone down on my town, on my town,
Goodnight.
Goodnight.

Iris DeMent