Thoughts About Home by Deborah

The Continuum of Life

The scent of ripened fruit hung heavy in the air that night. David and I walked through the peach orchard under a full autumn moon. I don't remember why we found ourselves in the orchard so late. All I knew for sure that night was that I would give birth within the next twenty-four hours. We would be parents for the first time, I was sure of it.

 

All these years later I recall the moonlight, David's nearness, and the strong scent of peaches. David had come home from work to find me crying in our room. Instead of comforting me, he reached for his camera. I'd never been pregnant before and certainly birth would be a whole new passage for me.

 

Recently, I was in the room with a dear friend who learned she had a short time left to live. I knew before she did. A conference call had been arranged so that her two sons, one calling from Washington,

D.C., the other from Los Angeles, could tell her themselves. When the phone rang, and she answered, I could tell by her expression that it was her boys. I nodded, touched her leg and left the room.

 

When I returned, the phone call was over and she sat in her hospital bed, staring straight ahead. She spoke first. "There's nothing more the doctors can do for me," she said. "I won't get better."

 

She was not a praying sort of woman. But I am convinced prayer can take many forms. I was not the only other person in the room. Her sister was there as well as a dear friend. Each in our own way told her we loved her.

 

I miss my friend. She died on Derby Day while David and I were in Audubon Hospital as he recovered from heart surgery. I remember her calls to us, full of concern and best wishes. I remember the phone call early Sunday morning that told me of her death. I remember how the last times I saw her, she would take my face in both her hands and kiss my cheek in farewell always adding she loved me. It was unlike her to be so affectionate, so eye to eye deliberate in her pronouncement of love.

 

I look back now and wish I had been more patient, less afraid, had told her just as deliberately how much I loved her, how much I valued her friendship, how much I had learned from her and how much I had yet to learn. I didn't want her to leave. I wanted her to stay.

 

Now, she visits me in my dreams and we share a brief time of conversation. Her voice hovers over me in my dreams and I can't recall the setting or reason for her visit. But she is okay now. Of that much I am sure, just as I was so sure about pending birth of our child all those years ago in that moonlit peach orchard.

 

What I was to learn from that birth was that I would no longer fear my own death. As I gave birth, I understood that birthing was as natural as dying. It was all a part of the continuum of life. I want to live and I want those I love to live but when death intervenes, I have learned to accept it as a fact. That's what people do; they live and then they die. The hard part remains living each day with a keen sense of joy and celebration for the love that surrounds me.

 

Even though they tell us the recession is technically over, for many the hard times persist. I am not minimizing the difficulty of financial insecurity. All I am telling myself and anyone who will listen is that it must not eclipse the joy, the tenderness, the goodness of all we have that money cannot touch or save.

 

Home, in every language there's a word for it; it's that place in our hearts that makes each moment a room of its own, a prayer of its own, a space in time to reach for the miracles that we know will come.

 

Mid-summer Morning

The house we live in was built in 1891 on the same limestone that once supported the Southern Exposition. For those of you who may not know, the Southern Exposition (1883-1887) was a sort of mini-World's Fair that exhibited the latest in art, farm equipment and inventions. The building that housed this collection of wonders extended from Magnolia Avenue on the north to Hill Street on the South and from Fourth Street on the east to Sixth Street on the West.

 

When the building was disassembled in 1887, a man by the name of Slaughter bought the land and created what are now St. James, Belgravia and Fountain Courts. So, the limestone was recycled to sustain the houses of the courts and the roof slate was used to side a hospital and doctor's house built on Sixth Street in the 1890's and billed as the first hospital west of the Alleghenies dedicated exclusively to the treatment of women.

Today we call them Slate house and Junior Slate house. No longer a hospital and doctor's home, they now house an architect's office and condos.

 

Our house on Belgravia takes on a different slant of light depending on the season. It faces north so ours is the last side of the court to see snow and ice melt. Ours, too, is the last side to watch our Mountain Laurels spring into bloom or our Tulip Magnolia release her heavenly pink blossoms.

 

It is now mid-summer and cool enough to carry breakfast outside near the fountain in our small courtyard. What is it about the sound of running water that is such a comfort? I sip my hot coffee, listen to the mockingbird whose trill goes on and on from one song dipping into another, and relish the early morning. Last night I was awakened to the soft but persistent hoot of an owl in the magnolias.

 

I lay awake thinking about this house that I love, the timeless grace of it. The bed we sleep in was given to me by a childless couple in their nineties who were leaving their home of 47 years to move into assisted living. The bed had been a gift to the wife from a dear friend in Texas. It had been her friend's grandfather's bed. They gave me the bed with the promise that one day I would make of it a gift as well.

 

So, the night, the owl, the bed, the woman, all rest on the foundation stones of the building where Edison first displayed his 16 candle-powered light bulb. It is said in those days, families would gather before the Southern Exposition with dinner baskets and picnic on the grounds of what would later become Louisville's Olmsted designed Central Part. But long before Frederick Law Olmsted ever saw the land, these families sat transfixed waiting for dark when they would behold the dazzling display of Mr. Edison's single light bulb.

 

In the dark, I drift back to sleep waiting for morning in the arms of this old bed, held in the rooms of this old house, in mid-summer, lulled by the owl, to be awakened by the light with the bird whose song never seems to stop and whose variations are endless.

Sustenance

My husband, David, came very close to dying. My thin, athletic husband who had always been careful about his diet and exercise had chest pains while walking our dogs and called his doctor. One test led  quickly to another and revealed major blockage in his arteries. His cardiologist said, “It’s 100% genetic. There is nothing you could have done to prevent this.” Following a catheterization, David had a quadruple by-pass performed by Dr. Steven Etoch at  Louisville's Audubon Hospital. The photograph that accompanies this brief letter was taken by David’s brother, Bob, in CCU, less than two hours after surgery.

Audubon Hospital became our second home. We slept there. We took all of our meals there. We received guests there. Instead of walking them to their cars, I accompanied them to the elevators. From our windows we saw geese in flight, the distant cityscape against the early morning mist rising off the Ohio, the forest with a stream running through it that embraced the west side of the hospital, the side where we were kept, the cardiac wing. In the morning we could hear the bird calls filling the trees. Our room had windows I could actually tilt open for fresh, cool, sometimes rain drenched air.

 David was in CCU for less than 24 hours and once we were in a room where flowers were allowed, they came. The flowers did. They felt like a blessing. We became known as the room with the beautiful flowers.

 Ned Morris, our rector and Emily Schwartz, our assistant rector, stopped by with prayers and their presence. On Sunday afternoon, Ned brought us the Eucharist. Ned prayed with us before the catheterization, the night before the surgery, and throughout the entire ordeal. We are truly blessed to have him in our lives and to have Emily with her beauty and youth and deep spirit.

 Kate brought a single down comforter from home for me and I made my nest of a bed on the couch along one wall nearest David’s bed. She downloaded movies to her I-pod so that I could don ear-plugs and watch old movies while David slept. And because she is my daughter, she gathered a small library of reading material and made sure I had the most recent New Yorker.

 Our son, David, was the designated griller at his wife’s family Derby party and brought me a full plate of delicious picnic food for dinner later that night.

The morning of David’s surgery I looked up as David’s brother Bob slipped into our room. David was showering. I was packing up our things. It was five am. A few minutes later, our daughter Kate, opened the door and joined us. Before the morning was over, all who could would gather round a table in the snack area off the waiting room for cardiac surgery. David’s sister, Annie brought food for snacking. Kate, her husband Craig, our son David, David’s brother Dick and his wife Deborah, Bob. Ned, Emily, my sister Cynthia and my brother, Gerald. Later my brother, Thomas would join us. Each of these people lead very busy lives but they stopped what they were doing. If I had tried to arrange a dinner party to include them it would have been impossible, but without my asking anyone, each of them put their lives on hold and came to be near. For hours they talked, laughed and snacked together around that table.

Through it all, my phone was filled with emails of support, blessings, offers of food, love, encouragement. Then, like the angel at  Bethesda, a nurse appeared to say David had been removed from the heart-lung machine and the surgeon was closing him up. She escorted us to a small room near Cardiac Critical Care where Dr. Etoch would meet us.

David now walks without pain. He tires easily but each day he grows stronger and the pain has now gone. We were sustained the many prayers and kindnesses of our family and friends. Our lives are filled with gratitude.

Best Friend

This will be our final spring in our house on Belgravia Court. 

In a few weeks, we will put our house on  the market and move on to another setting. At this time we have no idea where that will be but that’s okay. David and I are sure everything will fall into place when the time comes. In the meantime, we are looking at rentals as well as single family houses and condos. I’ve sent all our current documentation to a loan officer for pre approval and once we know for sure how we qualify , maybe we’ll write a contract or maybe we’ll check places on line in Hanoi or Savannah or someplace far away and rustic.

Since we’ve entered our sixties, everything has become relative.

Oh, wait a minute; this is supposed to be a real estate news letter. I almost forgot. Besides, any of you who know me very well know I would never move far away from my grandson.

 Let’s be honest. I am suddenly in the seller’s position. That means a lot of hard work, from the basement to the third floor! Staging a house for sale is not easy. The house must be clean, uncluttered and a little enchantment never hurts. I had a cousin who once told me she wanted to spend the night in our Jane Austen room on the third floor. That’s the fun part. Creating the magic in your home, letting the house speak to you in the way you have come to know it during the time the two of you have spent time together. My house is over a century old, so there’s already plenty of spirit in these bricks and mortar. I love these rooms and that helps bring out the best in each of us. Love always does that, you know?

All those projects you’ve put off come before you, front and center.  A check list is formed on the kitchen table and the two of you set about the arrangements. Junk day is March first: clean basement--check; closets are next--check; re-arrange pantries and kitchen cabinets-- check ; have kitchen floor refinished—check; have dining room patched painted—check; remove carpet from third floor and depending on condition of floors either clean or paint—check; install new medicine cabinet in third floor bath—check; sell or give away any unneeded furniture—check; wash windows – check; spread outdoor beds with pine straw and replace damaged post on deck; have flat portion of roof checked. Deal with it.

Sellers. My heart goes out to each and every one of you.

Now buyers. I understand. You have limits. We all do. Be reasonable. Do not shop outside of your range. There are bargains to be had but be reasonable. Be realistic.

Pray.

Call me.  I can help buyers AND sellers.  It’s hard. I know. I’m there. But it’s not all hard. It can be fun. Change doesn’t have to be all difficult. As a very wise five year old once told me. Change can be a kind of adventure. Even if it means leaving your best friend behind.

Deborah

In the Midst of Celebration

The ghosts of January are close upon me. They fill my dreams, stop me mid-stride in crowded spaces, blur my vision with sudden tears, reminding me in these days of stillness how much I loved them, how much I still do love them, and what longing after all these years, what longing they can still provoke.

This past Saturday, David and I had a few members of an extended New Orleans clan for dinner. Quite by chance, our paths have crossed with theirs, those few who have ended up, for the moment, living in Louisville, by way of North Carolina, Paris, France, and Nebraska. Upon inviting each of them, I said I wanted a little of their New Orleans family madness to warm my winter dining room.

They talked about Sunday suppers at the table of their maternal grandmother, a formidable woman who had birthed eleven children. The cousins, their parents and all the ghosts would gather to accommodate the aging matriarch. Everyone knew but no one really said anything about Uncle Reggie who had left his wife Ida and their four children for a woman named Edna. Edna and Uncle Reggie lived in a warehouse down by the docks in one room with a bed, a hot plate and a small refrigerator. The rest of the warehouse was filled with Uncle Reggie’s dream, a boat that would take Edna and him around the world. He built it by hand. It was beautiful. They did sail around the world while Ida and the children languished in New Orleans. One of those children has become famous and spurned his father’s recent attempt at reconciliation.

Our dear friend, Charlotte, whose mother was one of the eleven, remembered her mother picking her up from elementary school and whisking her off to the nearest Catholic Church just in time for communion. Charlotte’s mother, Ivy, went to communion every day of the week. Charlotte, as one of the younger of seven, found herself often accompanying her mother. Before the evening was over, Charlotte told me in mock horror, she hoped I realized I was going straight to Hell (because I am not Catholic). I ignored her. Charlotte has been telling me this since the day I met her. In the meantime she and David and I have walked the streets of her beloved Paris together, listening to her perfect French and wonderful stories. Such is the friendship between us.

But what hung over dinner for me was not the memory of Paris, but the absence of our youngest guest. Charlotte’s cousin, David, is a pediatric resident at Kosair Children’s Hospital here in Louisville. His current rotation is in intensive care. When I invited David, he said he had to work all day Friday and until noon on Saturday, but he would be with us for dinner on Saturday night. What he could not have anticipated was that by then he would have gone thirty hours without sleep and lost three patients, one of whom was a twenty year old he’d spoken with only minutes before her sudden death.

I call it hazing by death. Charlotte assured me he’d be okay.  This young man, not yet out of his twenties himself, was eleven when he was diagnosed with cancer and his mother told him she and his father were taking him to St Jude’s where he would get well. He did just that, despite, as he told me at dinner on Christmas Eve,” I wasn’t expected to live through the weekend.”  When I asked him why he had lived, he said his doctor at St Jude’s chose the right course of treatment.

With all of this in mind, I took a walk this morning. It was cold. I pulled my hat well down over my forehead to shield my eyes from the wind.  My coat and skirt were long, my gloves lined with rabbit fur, my stockings were wool and I was warm. St James and Central Park were empty except for the skittering squirrels and on Belgravia the tree men were out raising the canopy of our larger trees. As I walked I thought of our grandson’s tapered fingers as he nimbly opened a band aid recently, how even at three he knew to pinch the tip end of the casing before carefully peeling it away to free the bandage itself. I’ve seen his great grandfather repeat that exact action a hundred times. He was a physician and it was amazing to me to see his hands again, all these years beyond his departure from us, once again in such caring and precise action.

A winter dining room, a winter walk, the ghosts of January and my grandson’s eyes as he sat thinking in the midst of celebration.

Beyond This Place

What to tell you next? How David and I traveled south to Alabama through a slow and dense fog over the mountain from Sewanee on a cold, rainy afternoon through the back roads into the strange beauty of a denuded northern Alabama landscape with Victorian houses starkly rising like Confederate apparitions from the middle of bare fields, not a soul in sight, just the presence of these magnificent houses now quiet except for the imagined families that once graced their rooms so full and alive now gone, gone, nowhere to be seen the saintly grandmothers with the sweet smiles and thick waists in their aprons and wide heeled house shoes, the fathers in their suspenders holding a newspaper in one hand, looking out at us from the front porch as though we were the long anticipated guests for a late Sunday dinner. And, of course, somewhere in the background would be the middle-aged mother, a shawl draping her narrow shoulders and a hand gathered at her throat as if to protect herself from the chill of encroaching darkness.

 

We drove on through the rain until the fields turned to vast lakes and we zipped across long bridges to settle ourselves high on a hill in an old house with wide porches and a view of the water.  It rained steadily as we met our innkeeper and were ushered to our room with its tall ceilings and quiet chill.  The heat was turned up and we unpacked, placing our clothes and books in a way that warmed the room to us.  I have always loved creating a space for us wherever we’ve found ourselves, no matter how grand or modest the rooms, how near or far our home of the moment, stepping into a strange room and making it ours, if only for a night.

 

The next morning, I took breakfast with the innkeeper.  David had left the house hours before to meet with the men he’d come to see on business.  When I awoke and sat upright, I stared into the mirror over the dresser opposite the bed.  I had the disheveled look of a child suddenly aroused from a deep sleep and for a moment I stared blankly at this vision of myself as a child of certain age in her oversized silk pajamas, the top so large as to expose one shoulder, one bare shoulder as simple and spare as a child’s. Then I rose, slipped my bare feet into the dark flat shoes I wear with my night clothes, pulled on a long robe and made myself presentable before stepping into the wide center hall with the sound of rain, everywhere rain splintering the silence of this simple old house.

 

She was there, bustling in from the kitchen, pushing her hair away from her face with the back of one hand, while holding a cup and saucer in the other.  She smiled and asked if I’d like some coffee.  I said I would and she nodded toward the table set for two at the far end of the hall.  As dutifully as a child, I went to the table and took my place.

 

When she asked if she might join me for breakfast, I said I’d welcome her company and the two of us sat , for the better part of the morning, talking about the house, her five children, now grown and gone, her childhood in North Dakota and her love of old buildings.  It took a long time before she mentioned the dissolution of her marriage and the quiet discrimination she’d felt when branded by the local elite as a woman on her own.

 

Later, I would shower and dress, pack up our belongings and then strip the bed, folding the sheets carefully before placing them in the old wicker clothesbasket in one corner of our bathroom.  By the time David returned, it was early afternoon and we bade our farewells with hugs and promises of return.  Then, like some anonymous presence, some quiet and simple force, we retreated, into the rain, over the bridge, past the lakes, absorbed, absorbed into our lives beyond this place.

Beautiful Dreams

The house is tired. Abandoned by her mistress of 40 years she is now used by the family for reunions at Christmas and St. James Art Show. Otherwise the place braves the seasons alone except for tenants on her back floors. Her lovely beveled glass front doors have a threatening note taped to them saying if one so much as touches them an alarm will summon the police with such a noise as would raise the dead.

 

Tenants now enter through a side door into a small quaint room where someone’s grandmother had once wintered her ferns. From there they ascend a narrow back stairs with a satin rope as the railing. It is the kind of deep maroon satin rope churches use to mark pews for the family during funeral services.

 

The house is now for sale. Her public rooms are large. The foyer flanked by the front stairs was meant, I am sure, as some sort of gathering room. The living room to the left used to have pocket doors. They are gone which makes me angry until I spy the French doors leading to a stone terrace. I move quickly to remove the chairs blocking the doors, struggle with the locks and voilà, the doors open. However, the storm doors have been painted shut, locks and all, so I must satisfy myself with the light alone, a partial epiphany. I know the breeze in the trees, the smell of fall leaves, the sound of the nearby fountain all would flood this stale room with life and energy.

 

From the living room one enters the dining room where, I am told, the long table was left by an earlier owner all those years ago. In one corner of the room is a fireplace. Its mantle has an oval mirror with two small stands protruding to hold, I assume, candles. I am wrong. They are cake stands perched high connected to the mantle. I imagine cakes on the stands at Sunday dinner. A banana cream and a coconut cake. You could have your pick but you must finish your vegetables.

 

A staircase begins outside the dining room. The staircase is refined with alternating spindles of varied designs. As you climb the stairs a bank of stained glass windows face you. Each panel has a crank. They were meant to be opened as were the casement windows in the side sleeping porch at the end of the back hall on the second floor. My friend, Sena, lives next door and the porch from her study is eye to eye with this porch.

 

Later in the day she gleefully says I must buy this house. We could talk on summer nights between our porches as though we’d each climbed the huge old cotton wood between us. We’d pretend we were girls again and talk about our houses.

 

My fantasy continues as I walk down the hall toward the very front of the second floor, into the largest of the two bedrooms. As soon as I enter that room I feel the light. The house faces east so this room on this bright autumn morning is filled with the slanted light of early November. In the sitting area I notice on large window. It opens onto a small balcony which hovers over the front porch. The floor is made of stone with flag poles on either side.

 

I know then that each morning, weather permitting, I’d walk out my bedroom window and sit on my stone porch to watch the sun rise in the east or in the night wait for the stars and the mood to climb over the old trees, high enough for me to see and know it was time to retreat to bed and reading and sleep all the way until sunrise.

 

Then both Sena and I would live in magical houses with huge rooms and hidden passages. Sena says, “You’d breathe such life into that house. It needs you so.” And she is right. David would get those French windows open and together we’d bid the evening goodnight. Then we would walk back through, close the open windows and fall into the magic of this old house on the eve of our old age. And the young tenants could stay.

Photographs by Ad Cat Media. See more photographs at Autumn On the Court.

Voices

Our daughter Kate was born one chill October morning in 1979.  She was a dream come true. David and I had lost a child whose heartbeat we had heard and whose fluttering kick I had felt.  After the loss of that pregnancy in 1977, the doctors would caution me against becoming pregnant again too soon.  I remember my defiance. I remember my grief. I remember dreaming of our lost child and I refused to guard against another life.

My mother-in-law, Laura, went with me for the post pregnancy visits to my doctor. She’d lost several pregnancies herself but had the perspective of age to shield her from the raw grief I carried. She never forced her knowledge on me.  She did not discount my loss the way so many others did in those days. She acknowledged my loss and that for me was the beginning of healing.

Then that December, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  After exploratory surgery and a stomach bypass, she was sent home to die. She was given until March to live. She was 55 years old. I was 31.

In those bleak days following her surgery, I would sit by her bedside and listen as she told me she didn’t deserve this, she didn’t want to die; she’d just reached the point in her life where she felt she was beginning to figure things out and she wanted to learn more, love longer, and perhaps impart some measure of the grace she’d been granted.

I listened. I wrote thank you notes for the flowers which came daily. I helped with the ordinary household chores. Then, in February, I learned I was pregnant.  David and I decided we would not tell her.  She already felt robbed of her future.  She adored her only grandchild, our son, David, and so we chose to let her live in the moment.

In early March, I declined coffee after dinner.  She asked me, point blank, if I were pregnant.  I told her I was.  She asked for my due date.  I told her, October the seventh. There were no words of congratulations, no expressed concern for the safety of this pregnancy. She was too sick for such normal exchanges. We understood, without saying so, that the two of us had entered a solemn pact. If I could give birth, she could live until my due date.

In late April she went to bed one spring afternoon and she never dressed again in anything but bedclothes.  She’d begun to die in earnest.  As her stomach grew distended with a rock hard mass, mine grew full with the tenderness of new life.

With no medical intervention, Laura lived until the early hours of October the seventh.  We were with her at home when she passed. Three mornings later I gave birth to her first granddaughter, Laura Katherine, so named for each of her grandmothers.

In the last days of her life, Laura told me, “The phone rings often in the night, and every time it does, I think of you.”

When Kate was born, she cried until the nurse handed her to David whose voice she recognized.  I like to think somewhere deep in her memory Kate remembers the voice of the woman whose own life was extended by the promise of hers.  Home is where the voices of the ones we love never die.

 

The Power to Overcome Loss

David and I moved into this wonderful old home on

Belgravia Court

at this time of year in 1994. I’ve resurrected a story I wrote about that time in honor of the anniversary. And in honor of another fine old home – Linden Hill.

 

I always thought that when I grew up, saying good-bye would get easier.  That somehow becoming an adult would imbue me the power to overcome loss.  For most, youth is the time of invincibility.  For me, it was just the opposite; I believed I’d become invincible with age.

Well, it hasn’t happened.  I’m still not very good at saying good-bye.  I’ve decided it’s an ongoing process.  I’ll spend the rest of my life saying good-bye, a moment at a time, to the places and people I’ve loved and left.  Because the truth is, love never leaves us.  We become what we love, assimilate what matters most to us--the people, places, foods, smells, touch, presence.

The time has come to say good-bye to Linden Hill.  On Monday, we close on our new house and begin our move from these wonderful rooms we’ve called home for the past year.  It’s been a place of comfort and healing.

I’ll never stop saying good-bye to these quiet spaces, the tall ceilings and large windows, the wide planks of pine and everywhere, the books.

I’ll never stop comparing fireplaces to the ones I’ve known here or awake in a lovelier room than the one I’ve known here.

This weekend Kate brought home some friends from school.  At two a. m. everyone became hungry and I cooked with them down in the kitchen.  Our kitchen doors were once windows and to open them you must push out and the large panes of glass give way to the out of doors.

It was stuffy inside and I opened the doors and stepped outside for a breath of fresh air.  I was astonished by the beauty of the night, the ripple of clouds just beneath the nearly full moon, the crickets and the stars.

It’s a little after 3 a.m. now.  The kids have all settled down.  The house is quiet.  The same night has gathered our new house where new windows await us.  It’s time now to say good-bye, to pack up my memories and move on.  It’s never easy to say good-bye.  Yet, life wouldn’t be nearly so rapturous if we never changed because we’d never grow. A layer at a time, I’m moving deeper and deeper into love.

Memory

I gather old flowers and pile them on a compost heap in the back corner of our courtyard. Theymake a colorful stack by the air conditioning compressor. The essence of summer, fading coxcombs, brittle straw daisies, delicate wildflowers from my mother’s garden. Rose of Sharon, tips of rosebuds and lanky lilies. Large white globes of hydrangea and the soulful beads of orange and black I can never recall by proper name. These flowers graced my home, carefully arranged in Tad’s stately ruby vases she always kept on her sideboard in the dining room, or Ama’s generous white sugar bowl, which must be at least 125 years old. My father’s mother handed me a delicate piece no bigger than a cream pitcher with roses suspended on the ivory finish.  My own mother gave me my favorite vase for rosebuds, a deeply hued rosette from Italy.

            My father-in-law was orphaned by the time he was five.  The personal effects of his missionary parents were not kept intact.  He had only his memory of the pieces he held sacred from the days when his parents were alive. As an adult, he traveled widely and one day I walked into his living room to discover two new vases perched at either end of the mantle.  My mother-in-law told me the vases were like the ones he remembered from his childhood, the ones which his mother had placed on either end of the mantle in their living room. These memory vases, as I have come to call them, are a deep burnt orange with fluted tops and a reed like finish. The interior is cool white porcelain. They are now in our living room. One day they will belong to another generation and I hope the story of their significance will be passed on as well.

I’ve never put flowers in these vases. Perhaps I will one day.  As I emptied the old flowers on the compost heap I thought of how wonderful it would be if they each went to seed and combined to form a whole new set of flowers in the tight little spot I have designated. It occurs to me that memory is like that.  Layer upon layer of distinct moments combine to form a continuum and the colors and textures unite to create something stronger and more whole that binds us to the past in a way that defies the purity of the single moment.

In this inferno we have known as August, it took flowers to keep me focused on surviving.

Mid-summer's Recollections of Home

All in a moment the evening sky went dark. Thunder terrified our dog, Missouri, and lightning glared over all of us. The rain took its time. Then, just as suddenly as the sky had gone dark, the rain flooded gutters, rushed through trees and pebbled the rooftops.

Sunday night in the city where the gaslights flicker even as we stuff certain window sills with towels to keep the water from seeping into the plaster walls below.

Upon waking this morning, the air is still and heavy. Today’s high is 96 degrees. It is, after all, summer.  It’s supposed to be hot and muggy. I take comfort in that.

In my childhood there was no air conditioning.  My mother rose before dawn to iron.  I wore shorts and halters. My favorite halter top had fluted straps that rose over my child’s shoulders and they made me feel pretty.

In those days we practiced our most difficult spelling words out loud as we took turns swinging on the neighborhood’s single swing set. D-i-f-f-e-r-e-n-c-e…..we were eight years old and we pumped our legs hard so we could swing high. E-l-o-q-u-e-n-c-e….

Our blind neighbor, Mrs. Pebbles, had a Seeing Eye dog who was allowed outside from time to time. He’d show up with a mouth filled with rocks which he would deposit at your feet with a look of keen expectation. You’d stop swinging long enough to scoop up one wet rock and throw it as far as you could, knowing he’d be back soon drooling the same rock.  We’d do this over and over, chanting spelling words and swinging in the hot days of summer.

Mrs. Pebbles had a music box that she would let me carefully lift the lid and watch the pop-up ballerina pirouette before a tiny mirror.  I opened and shut the lid over and over until I sensed it might be polite to say thank you and leave.

When we weren’t swimming or climbing on the swing set, we were running. We had imaginary wars, battles over what I can’t quite recall. Sometimes we played “Gunsmoke.” My best friend, Diane, always got to be “Miss Kitty” because Diane had a mole on her face and so did Miss Kitty. Diane called it her beauty mark and my mother assured me I was pretty enough without a mole on my face.

Up the way was a farmhouse where Virginia, Diane’s housekeeper, lived with her daughter Francis Arlene. Frances Arlene was a lot older than we were but we knew Virginia wanted more children. She told us about her “miscarriages.” She never mentioned a man which of course, at eight, made perfect sense to us.

Diane’s grandfather owned the farm and the house and the barns.  Out front of the house there were tall pear trees that sent down the sweetest fruit. You had to be careful of wasps, but the pears were worth it.

There was a large field near the barns and a horse named “Gypsy.” We had to get a step ladder out of the shed in order to mount her but once on her shiny black back, we would hold onto her mane as she walked around the circumference of the field. I would lay my face against her and if my head hurt as it sometimes did when I was a child, the pain would leave when I rode Gypsy. Up there high above the earth, I could feel the easy sway of her muscles beneath me as she ambled around that summer field.

Way off in the distance, beyond roads I was forbidden to cross, stood a tall brick house facing a road that no longer existed. If it had been up to me, Gypsy and I would have thundered right over those forbidden roads to that old house. I loved that old house. I would never have the chance to enter it before it was gone, but the love I felt was real and I have carried it into every old house I’ve entered since.

When it rained, we played in Diane’s playhouse which was stored in her daddy’s garage. He was never home. Diane lived with her grandparents next door.  Diane was allowed to see her mother once a year, but that’s another story.

It’s summer and if we slow way, way down, the living feels easy.

(Picture above is an abandoned home in Bourbon County, KY. Photograph by Deborah Stewart)