Over the Fence

When I was 6, my mother and I moved into her new partner's modest but comfortable home on the edge of downtown Anchorage, across the street from an elementary school that I did not attend.

The school's playground was scary to me. Usually empty when I was home, it would occasionally fill with the shouts and laughter of children that I did not know.

I would go over and play on that equipment if an adult was with me, otherwise I chose to stay inside the chainlink fence of our front yard.

I quickly made friends with two older boys - each representing a half of my split personality - one doughy, bookish, and down to watch movies all day, and the other kinetic, curious, and constantly exploring the edges of his map.

One lived across the alley behind the house, and the other lived on the next block. To visit both of them, I preferred to travel in the alley, rather than on the street.

Because I didn't want to leave the front yard alone.

This was the boom times in Alaska. Our neighborhood was racially, culturally, and economically mixed, with professional families, struggling families, and lots of single men looking for work in the fisheries or on the North Slope.

Substance abuse was a major issue, and even though it's cold, Anchorage's low human density and high tree density makes it a compelling place to get fucked up and sleep rough.

Where we lived was in a corridor between services and opportunities downtown, and a forest where many people slept and hung out.

A few years into living there, our house was broken into twice. Once they broke the window of my bedroom to get inside.

Another time I remember my other mother picking a woman up from the sidewalk out front, giving her a bath and letting her take a nap.

But almost right away after moving in, I got yelled at while playing alone in the front yard by a furiously, incoherently drunk man. I didn't understand a word, but I remember the shame of feeling like I'd done something wrong. Guess that's what you get for being a gussuk kid on stolen land.

This happened once or twice a year. Someone would test me while I was out front. Ask me for money, say something creepy, yell at me or make fun.

I developed a small aversion to the front yard, recognizing unconsciously that for this little shy boy, the front yard was a little bit like being on stage.

Eventually I started playing in the playground across the street. I got bigger and more confident. I got my own bmx, and the front yard became too small to contain me.

I think about that front yard all the time.

It's one of the enduring metaphors of my life.

This wasn't my first or last front yard, but it was the yard where I first became conscious of my own fear and the shame it produced. I was embarrassed to be stuck in the yard, and later in life I would make it a habit to constantly look for the fence, and how to get into the bigger yard beyond.

When I think about this idea, I think about that spot on 10th avenue, 40 years in the past.

Each of us lives inside a fenced area that we call reality. The stuff we know about is inside the fence, and the stuff we don't know about is outside.

Logically we know that there's a bigger yard beyond, but things can get scary out there really quick, so it's psychologically easier to just ignore the fence than to acknowledge it's there.

If there is no fence, then there's nothing scary on the other side of it. So we start erasing the fence. It just becomes a no-go area that we don't get too close to.

That's why when you start getting near the edge of someone's reality - their fence - that's when you start hearing them say that doesn't look like anything to me. You know this is happening because rational, cogent people fall absolutely to shit and start saying the most ridiculous things, because they'll do almost anything to avoid the discomfort of acknowledging the fence and accepting that they live inside of it.

This happens to me too of course. Today my buzzer got stuck and I had to go outside in my stupid gold shorts and my oversized hoodie. Other than that, I've been inside all day. Because some days you need the yard to be real small. Like studio apartment small.

The trick is just not to confuse the yard with reality.