The House that Built Me: Living Room

It's funny, the things that will trigger a memory. A friend posted a link from a few-years-old clip of a late night television segment. In it, the show's current guest was railing about the advances in technology and how the wonders that brings are turning us into an impatient, ungrateful society, without perspective.

One of the examples he mentioned related to smartphones now compared to those old models with the rotary dial. That was all it took to set me in motion down a trail of memory lane. I commented "... My Gram had one of those heavy black rotary phones! In fact, I think I was in college before they even had a second phone at all. It used to be just that one beast of a phone. And if I wanted to use it, I had to sit right next to the desk in the living room. And I didn't dare move more than a few inches, because I would have pulled it off the desk onto my head and killed myself. It was a weapon. And it made that sound, when you dialed, that only those old phones made."

I am suddenly fifteen and sitting on the old red living room carpet. No matter how I positioned myself, whenever I talked on that phone -- and I talked til my grandparents rolled their eyes so hard, I started to fear *theirs* might actually get stuck that way -- I was eternally in the way. Gram was stepping over me. (What an obnoxious little twit I was, in retrospect, making my sweet Gram STEP OVER me. Gosh.) Gramp would detour through the dining room to get around my teenaged draping of body parts over the pathway. I'm pretty sure the nudges and kicks I got as my brother pushed past were entirely intentional, as only a younger brother's can be.

That heavy black monstrosity of a telephone truly was a weapon. It perched on the desk, next to the lamp with a mallard as a base, the entire time I was privileged to be inside that house. I remember the familiar but indescribable whizz-buzz-clicky noise that dial made as you dialed each number. I think, if I were to concentrate hard enough, I could probably remember the exact sequence of tones it made to call my dad on James Street from that phone. Its ring was truly that old-fashioned unmistakable telephone ring that smartphones attempt to offer in a digital version on your ringtones menu. And there was nothing, *nothing* more satisfying than slamming that handset down if someone on the other end of a call upset you. (I was a teenager, after all, and that came with all the stereotypical drama and angst. It also came with a stern glare from an adult.)

I wasn't the only one on that phone, though, no matter how my family may have felt about it. I probably came by it honestly. Gram would lean against the desk and talk for what felt like days to her sister or one of Gramp's sisters or one of the ladies from church. At which point it was like moth-to-flame for us kids. Hanging on her arm, collapsing dramatically at her feet with need, choosing that moment to have a childhood squabble that left her with one finger attempting to plug her open ear and drown us out, and The Look That Meant Business on her face.

If the kitchen was the hub of that home, then that entry way from kitchen to living room, with the desk and the phone, was Grand Central Station. The desk was pushed against the wall formed by the stairs that led to the second floor (and hiding the steps down to the basement below). Gram rearranged that room more than once. There was an armchair that switched back and forth between the spot by the doorway to the kitchen and the door that led out onto the sun porch. There was an old rocking chair that would swap spots with the armchair, or would relocate to a corner of Gram's bedroom when the Christmas tree would occupy its spot. The chair that was next to the porch door had a dainty little end table next to it.


At the foot of the stairs, was a small table that always had some sort of flower arrangement on it and a mirror hung above. There was a wide, squat window that looked out at the driveway, and was perfect for viewing if you sat just a few steps up from the bottom. The two front windows looked out onto the sun porch, so not much light came in there, but there was also a window that faced north, behind the couch. Somehow, with just those two windows "facing outside" that room was always bright and cheerful.


The couch sat under that north-facing window, and on the west wall, between the chair and the wide doorway to the dining room, sat Gram's prized electric organ with its little bench. There were little octagonal end tables, one on either side of the couch, and they had these lamps with bases that reminded me of granite turrets on a castle. The coffee table was this heavy textured slab of some kind of stone, resting on sturdy carved wooden legs, but what I can tell you most about that stone top is that the corners left many a bruise on my knobby knees and that I'm still not sure how one or the other of us didn't end up with stitches, what with all the roughhousing that went on a little too close for Gram's comfort level.




When I was a wee lass, Gram and Gramp purchased a color tv. It had a button for each channel -- I think there were maybe twelve? -- on it, and where I saw, for the first time, that Dorothy stepped out into the brilliant world of Oz. (So *that* is what the guard meant by "a horse of a different color!") I watched Sesame Street and Mr Roger's Neighborhood. All summer, we watched the clock and then raced for the living room in time for LeVar Burton to open up the wonders of yet another book on Reading Rainbow. On Sundays, in the winter, there would be football games. On Friday nights, Dallas would play as I wedged between two of my favorite people on the couch, unaware of anything but that I felt so grown up at such a tender age.

I lined up my paper dolls along its perimeter. Josh built He-Man compounds in the big open center space. We played school and constructed Little People towns and sorted baseball cards and "rammed around" until Gram reached a breaking point that resulted in us being tossed unceremoniously outdoors on our ears.

I can close my eyes and feel the roughness of the carpet under my hands or the texture of the red curtains that hung at the windows, until they were traded out for white lace. I can hear the metallic clack of the pale green-ish cream blinds as the porch door swung open or closed, or the times Gram would pause in her constant buzzing to open up the top of the organ bench, select one of her song books, and proceed to play a tune or two on the organ, changing the sound from piano to harpsichord until she found just the right tone. I remember the walls painted the palest sage green (with the stairway walls red) and then cream. I remember the rough-knit red-and-white afghan folded over the back of the couch, and the round red corduroy pillow and the purple triangle pillow, both faded, worn around the seams and softened from years of use, and I can hear Gram's soft snore as her head tilted back on the couch, her feet cradled on the coffee table by one of those pillows, as she took a quick post-lunch siesta.


At Christmas time, Gram would put electric candles in the all windows and we'd race to be the one who turned on the most as night fell. The one behind the couch always seemed to be forgotten -- either it's blue glass bulb would stay dark and cool or it wouldn't be twisted back to turn it off when they would shut down the house for the night. Gram would hang a pine garland around the door to the porch, and on it, she would hang her collection of Hallmark rocking horse ornaments, the newest one from the ongoing series which Gramp would give her each year as a gift. At the very top, she would anchor in a huge pinecone she'd brought back from one of their road trips west. On the doorway to the dining room, there would be another garland, this one decorated with little metal bells in all sorts of colors, and in the center was a red bell with a pull string that would play Silver Bells. With the number of times we clamored to be raised up to pull that string, I have no idea how that thing continued to work, year after year. I supposed there's some truth when they say "they just don't make it like they used to."

A thousand memories in that room. A thousand more sensory recollections. That room taught me about family and gathering together. I played pretend and I played my flute (sometimes under duress). I grew up *living* in that room. I never understood the difference between a family room and a living room, because in Gram's home, that room was both.

Read more...

The House that Built Me: The Yard

It's that time of year when I start aching to be outdoors more. Here in the tropical Sunshine State, I experience the phenomenon of "Reverse Hibernation." Everyone know that bears and people who live in climates with the traditional four seasons spend their Winters sealed in their snug dens. Down here, it's the (six-month) Summer that traps us indoors, windows closed, shades drawn, in an attempt to escape the majority of the extreme and uncomfortable weather. Last weekend though, we had a cool front (read: it was 80) and since then, the air has taken on a different feel. The temperatures have rebounded back to the upper 80s, but the air is no longer weighty and oppressive. I can feel it trying to become beautiful again and that makes me hungry for its arrival, so I can fling open my windows and play out in the sunshine without melting into a messy puddle of goo.

I started thinking about the yard at Gram's and Gramp's house. I spent my fair share of time outside as a child, and their yard was the ideal place to be.

There was the perfect combination of open, sunny space and big old shade trees.

The grass was as soft and cool as satin on bare Summer feet. The yard filled with deliciously crunchy Autumn leaves and delightful drifts of snow to climb during the Winter. There were lovingly tended flowerbeds and fantastic places to hide.

All manner of rocks, perfect for climbing, sitting on, leaping off and one perfectly flat rock, covered with lichens, that made a great place for watching puffy clouds form shapes on lazy afternoons, especially when it was sun-warmed.

It seemed each area of the yard had its own personality, constructed by its unique inhabitants. The front yard had a blue spruce, with its silvery sharp needles; two white birch trees, which remain my favorite trees to this day; an ash tree at the corner of the driveway; and two tall evergreens, standing like sentinels on guard in front of the house. The south side of the yard had several ash trees along the property line, an enormous rhododendron bush,

and two snowball bushes that were in perfect view, across the driveway, from the windows over the kitchen sink.

The immediate backyard, which lay between the house and the orchard,

had the garage; some forsythia; a crotchety old Red Delicious apple tree that Gramp threatened on more than one occasion; some lilac bushes; two stately evergreens; a Tamarack tree, with the tiniest, softest needles ever, like stroking kitten fur; two maple trees (one came down after Hurricane Gloria came through, the year I was in fourth grade); a beech tree that my brother abused regularly with a yellow plastic wiffle ball bat; and this creepy burned-out old stump from a tree that had been struck by lightning long before I had been born. The north side of the yard had a line of evergreens--different from the other varieties--separating our yard from the neighbor's, and this wonderful Japanese red maple that was a fiery rich red, and rivaled those white birches for the position of being my favorite.


The flowerbeds changed their fashion statement from season to season, and year to year. Gram loved roses and daffodils, tulips and chrysanthemums. There were bluebells and violets and snowdrops and black-eyed Susans. Tiger lilies and johnny-jump-ups and potted geraniums. The yard laughed and sang for joy, color popping everywhere, under her experienced eye and her green thumb. Everywhere you looked, flowers greeted you cheerfully, except in the cold of Winter.


I couldn't get enough of being out in the yard. There were games to play and imaginary adventures to weave. I reveled in the change of seasons, even before I could appreciate that some places didn't know their wonder.

All Summer long, I would chafe to get out of the house, early as Gram would release me, running my bare feet through the dew-drenched lawn. I would hot-foot across the driveway in the heat of the midday, cooling my feet in the grass on the other side. I would lie back on its plush green and stare up at the blue sky. My brother and I would improvise a game of "volleyball", over Gram's clothesline--more fun when a sheet blew in the Summer breeze between us, until Gram would chase us away from her clean laundry, and then we would drive her equally crazy playing dodge ball off the side of the house. (How we never broke a window, I'll never know.)

With Autumn came waiting at the foot of the driveway for the school bus, under the fire of the foliage.

The lawn turned beige, the Summer flowers gave way to their more hardy cousins, and I gleefully shuffled through the yard, upsetting the piles of leaves my grandparents had spent the better part of their days raking--you remember all those trees I described, right?--for the purpose of my delight and pleasure of course! (Ha. They just exchanged a glance up in Heaven over that one. I know it.)

There was nothing better than the brisk wind to rosy my cheeks, as I whirled around the yard, invigorated after the chill drove away the lazy heat of Summer. To this day, I will seek out whatever minuscule pile of dry leaves that may exist, purely to relive that satisfying crunch under my shoes.


Autumn marched into Winter, out in the yard. Some years, the yard stayed sullen and brown, alternating between frozen hard and a muddy mess when dreary rains chose to fall from lead grey skies. But the best years brought a yard glittering with snowfall.

I knew all the places the drifts would be deepest. On snow days, on weekends, in the sparse minutes of remaining daylight after school, Gram would fruitlessly attempt to keep me inside the warmth of the house, but I would insist on bundling up anyway, clomping out into the dazzling snow glare to tumble down snow banks and run in slow-motion as I broke through the crust into the powder beneath. The sharp air would steal away my breath and make my eyes water, but still I would leave my foot trail all around the yard, only coming in when I could no longer feel my extremities, my red face smarting from the shock of the heated kitchen. And then I would press my face eagerly to the window, watching the Christmas lights glow on the backyard evergreens and waiting for the next snowfall to provide me with a fresh canvas.

And then it would be Spring again. Tiny grey-green buds on the branches of the trees. Slivers of grass pressing out of the matted brown. Before I knew it, overnight it seemed, there would be green everywhere again.

The freedom of running through the yard wearing only a light layer made me feel like a colt freed from its stall. I would shout to my brother from the opposite end of the yard. The first whine of a lawnmower would carry on the breeze. Chasing hummingbirds and butterflies from blossom to blossom. Spotting the first fat bumblebee. The whole world appeared to be alive from the vantage point of Gram's yard. And it would all begin again. I knew no season that wasn't perfect for being out in that yard.

The backyard saw a screened gazebo, perfect for Summer lunches. It hosted family reunions and dried loads of laundry with the outdoor freshness that only sunshine and breeze can truly achieve. It was the place for play and for chores. We would shell sweet peas and grill hamburgers. We would rake and shovel and stay out of the way of the grown-ups mowing. We played alone, we played together, we argued, as only siblings can, and then the yard was big enough to cool off separately, until it was time for some new game. That yard knew wiffle balls and tennis balls and plastic playground balls. It endured our feet and our bikes and the flop of our young bodies onto the ground. It was, quite frankly, the best yard I've ever seen.

Read more...

The House that Built Me: Yellow Bedroom

The yellow bedroom. Gram always called it the west bedroom. At one time, it had been my aunt's childhood bedroom, but I always knew it as my own, and I inhabited it so often, it might as well have been.

The two windows overlooked the backyard. If you looked between the tree branches, you could see the orchard beyond. On sultry Summer nights, I would lie in the twin bed, listening to crickets chirping. There wasn't any air-conditioning, but with the windows opened wide, the occasional breeze would cool the room for sleeping, the gauzy pale blue and yellow curtains fluttering ever so gently.

I would fall asleep to the deep darkness you only find in the country, the serenade of the night sounds forming a lullaby. And in the morning, I would awaken to the muted morning light. I firmly believe this is why I still sleep with the blinds cracked. My internal rhythm responds perfectly, waking with the growing natural light.

The bed had the comfort of a familiar space. I knew exactly where the comfy spots were. The feather pillows were soft & somehow always cool. The sheets were worn with age, but not worn out, just that weathered softness of many washings, and they smelled of sunshine & fresh air. There was always a bedspread, though they would swap in & out with Gram's mood--sometimes white, other times yellow or pale green--and in the Winter, there was the softest lavender blanket. I remember, as a small girl, seeking out its edge to rub between my fingers while I grew drowsy.

Like my bedroom at home, it was yellow. I was never a fan of my yellow bedroom walls at home, but here, it was cozy & cheerful. The furniture was a warm brown, and laid out on top of the dresser, on an old mirrored tray, were all Gram's lipsticks, her "rouge" and her compact of pressed powder and her blue eye shadow. I would open & close them, listening to that satisfying snap, occasionally testing it out just a bit. Gram didn't use makeup everyday. It was for special occasions, trips to the mall, holidays and going to church. Gram was always beautiful to me, but she seemed even more lovely when she would change from her typical work clothes, accessorizing with her beads & her clip-on earrings, and then standing at that dresser, "putting on her face" from all those little containers in front of the mirror on the wall, as I watched her, perched on the edge of the bed.

On the wall, over the headboard of the bed, was a print of a little girl picking wildflowers in a meadow. As Gram would buzz in & out of the room, stepping over my paper dolls or my Cabbage Patch Kids, she would so often look at that framed print & recite to me: "There was a little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead. And when she was good, she was very very good, but when she was bad, she was horrid." I spent so much time in this room. Playing imaginary games, reading on the bed, recovering from various maladies--both physical & emotional.

The yellow bedroom was a cocoon, an oasis of sorts, from the trials & traumas of growing up. I played there and sulked there. I cried there and dreamed there and felt safe there. I dressed for school, took refuge there, spent precious hours there. That yellow bedroom remains one of the most peaceful places I have ever known.

Read more...

The House that Built Me

I have mentioned my Gram & Gramp and their home, and the place they have, front & center, in the my personal history, many times. Over the last few weeks, as I have browsed through some old photos, and again as I composed "Where I'm From," a seed of an idea was planted & taking root.

I was blessed to have two homes as I grew up. I lived with my Dad & brother in the same house where my Gramp was born, but I believe I spent at least the same amount of time in my grandparents' home. It was the place where Dad dropped us off before work, when I hadn't already spent the night. It was where we gathered in the evening, after work & school. It was the site of holidays & weekly Sunday dinners. I spent my Summers running wild through the three & a half acres of grass & trees and riding my bike up & down the quiet street.

So many of my memories find their home here. I can close my eyes and see it all, even now, to the minute detail. The sights, tastes & smells. The way it sounded & felt. Each creak as the house settled. Each hiss of a radiator. The view from every window. But if there is one thing I have learned in my three and a half decades on this earth, it is that memories cannot be taken for granted. They can slip away silently, leaving sadness when the power the recall loses its vitality...or worse, when a memory is so thoroughly lost, we aren't even aware it ever existed.

And so, bit by bit, week by week, I believe it is time to capture & record it. I want to recollect, wander quietly down memory lane & let the images surface, where I can grab them & turn them into more pieces of my recorded history. All of these fragments that make up The House that Built Me.

Read more...