Last evidence of my Nashville days

Any distraction that doesn’t involve Zoom these days is a welcome one. If I am going to be tethered to the computer, I need an outlet. From boredom, I started zooming on Google maps, checking out properties where I lived and tried to see what the images could reveal.

It didn’t take long to land on Crosswood Court, home for five years until the Colorado move. The Google street image in Colorado Springs reveals the house next door and a van blocking the duplex.

I could pin one photo to Spring 2018. The overhead view still showed my car in the drive, the photo taken after Nancy moved out in March and before I bought a new patio set in June 2018. The secluded patio was almost empty, just a few random pots and food plates for the neighborhood cat colony.

But the street view could be narrowed down to a more specific point in time. The picture was taken after 1 p.m. on Saturday, May 18. The grass was freshly mowed, much like it was when we rolled out for Colorado. I mowed the lawn one more time before I turned attention to loading the truck. My yard in Colorado Springs has no grass, and I knew it would be a while before I cranked a mower to life again.

As we finished loading the van, I grew unsentimental. Attachment to these last object faded as the temperatures soared and the moment of departure neared. Porch chairs that needed new cushions? Throw them on the pile. A framed Neko Case poster with shattered glass rose from the pile.

It's hardly the statue of Ozymandias rotting in the Egyptian desert. But for a moment, my life revolved around that yard. I sat on those cushions, fed cats on those tables, displayed those rare beer bottles and hung that poster on the wall till it fell in the grass.

The property manager wondered what had happened on the street, and I promised to call bulk pickup to have it all removed. It would be a week before it would arrive. I had no idea the neighborhood would look upon what I left behind and shake their heads through Memorial Day. A new life awaited, a new home on the edge of the Rocky Mountains. I put little thought into Crosswood Court once I crossed out of Tennessee and requested bulk pickup a few days later.

I had no clue that before bulk pickup arrived,  the Google van would take its irregular trip down the street that week.

In another two months the house was rented again, the cats scurried off to friendlier porches. I doubt my name came up much anymore.

But the rare person to survey the street on Google Maps would witness the last mound of evidence that I had lived there. Days later, a Public Works truck would have scraped the pile off the flattened grass that would bounce back days later.