Gathering Memories

Old homestead

                                                     Berry patch (L) and brook (R) behind me

Yesterday I stood in the driveway of my brother's house that sits where a small apple orchard and fruit patch thrived when I was a child. The brook is to one side, West's hill the other and, if I glanced next door I could see the old homestead itself, now looking like someone else's house altogether. My mind's eye and my memory filled in remembered details - the bent old apple trees that looked like horses to my sisters and me to which we attached rope stirrups and reins; the thorny patch of blackberry and raspberry bushes and the stout blueberry bushes; the brook that ran along the edge of our property line before dashing through what we called the tunnel to the other side of the road where it widened into a satisfactory small pond; the giant pine across the street where we kids would crouch for hours building miniature moss and stick houses and roads lined with pine needles where imaginary pioneers lived and traveled through the bear-infested, never-ending pine woods themselves. 

When I was very small, I would pretend I was mere inches tall. Rocks became mountains, moss an impenetrable forest, a runnel of rainwater in a roadside ditch grew into a roaring river. If I sat still long enough and was quiet, the imagined scene became real and I entered the parallel dimension with ease. It would take a sudden loud noise or a tap on the shoulder to bring me back and I always returned reluctantly. By the edges of the brook, beneath the trees of nearby woods or among the cornstalks in the meadow near the house, I would lose myself in play, bothering to go home only when my stomach rumbled loud enough to rouse me or the ringing of the ship's bell on our porch calling us kids home penetrated my awareness. I always kept the house in view, though when I was hunkered down I believed no one from home could see me. For an introverted child, this state of affairs was ideal. 

I am too stiff now to hunker down and too tall to go unnoticed as I walk along the brook's edge. And I am far too big to fit through the culvert and splash into the pond. On all sides the reeds and marsh grasses and bushes have encroached until there's hardly a pond at all. In my memory, my mother is beside me, helping me find a few good-sized stones to toss into the water. "Rocks help clean the water," she'd say, and we'd throw our finds as far as we could, watching the ripples make their way to shore. 

Turning from the brook, I am assailed by another memory. Coming back from a visit to a friend's house one late winter afternoon, I stopped at the brook to listen to the water talk to itself as it splashed through the tunnel. When I looked toward my house, the kitchen light came on. I knew my mother was there, making supper, and I was flooded with such a feeling of contentment and safety that I was near tears. Just the way I am now as I recall that feeling of utter happiness. 

The brook summer 2023.

Returning Home

 

I look out the window at the familiar trees of my childhood, the great pines, the lone oak still holding its leathery brown leaves on this mid-November morning. I watch the light appear in the eastern sky over the brook, watch the fingers of sunlight touch first the top of the mountain – Mama’s mountain – and trace their way slowly down to color meadow and farmhouse, and finally the familiar road I now walk along every day. All my selves, my small self, my grammar school self, my teen self and the one I was in young adulthood, my middle-aged self, home for as many visits as I could fit in my busy schedule, my now elderly self who holds them all in memory, walk the road that leads from my childhood home to what we kids called “the Corner” a mile away, a gently hilled road winding its way past fields and woods and a few houses. 

 

I am more at home and at peace here than anywhere else I’ve ever lived, having formed an intense attachment to the place in early childhood. As a small girl, my perimeters extended to the farm on the hill, known to us as West’s Hill because a family of that name lived there, down the hill to encompass the nearest neighbor’s farm where lived an elderly couple we called Grandma and Grandpa though they were no relation at all, across the street to the Big Pine at the edge of another meadow, and past the brook to Mary’s house with whom I chose to play on occasion. She was younger than I, falling between my own age and that of my sisters, three years younger. My older brother, though busy with other pursuits, often consented to play games with his younger sisters. We played, too, with the West kids whose farm had a delightful hill for winter sledding and whose woods were filled with wild flowers and mushrooms in the spring, and a great barn filled with cows and a grain bin filled with corn, oats, and barley mixed with molasses. 

 

 To be nearly home again (my childhood home lies next door to the house where I am living now) is an unexpected gift. I wake each morning with a feeling of expectancy. I walk past Grandma and Grandpa Gordon’s house now renovated to suit its new owners, up West’s hill where a newer ranch house occupies the spot where the old two-story farmhouse once sat before it burned to the ground one cold December night, along the level spot that leads to the Macchi farm where we once boarded our cow, Cecile, and did farm chores in exchange, past the Name Rocks where people in the 1800s, and later we neighborhood children, carved our names and the date, along the edge of the long hay meadow that marked the beginning of the wooded area near the Corner, to the Corner itself where stands a favorite tree I’ve become attached to over the years. Here, too, are massive rocks that hold honeysuckle in the spring, and enormous trees that I recognize from 70 plus years ago. And as I turn for the walk home, I feel the same lift of spirits I felt as a small girl, as a young woman, as a middle-aged visitor. It is possible, in a wide sense, to go home again.

Where I Am From

I am from the depths of the round, gilt-edged mirror that hung over the fireplace mantle, reflecting my first homecoming, from the unremitting ticking of the Seth Thomas clock that bonged on the hour, and from the voices and faces that morphed slowly into mother, father, brother, sisters.

I am from the beamed and shuttered farmhouse whose walls hugged me close and kept me safe, from the giant maple that leaned over the road and the locusts that dropped their sticky yellow catkins on the broad lawn; from apple trees bent low for climbing, from stone walls where snakes lazed in the summer sun, from stream and pond and open meadows, and woods that begged to be explored. I am from a place of gentle blue hills and lazy river valleys and small dairy farms, a place of Yankee ingenuity and rock-ribbed landscapes.

I am from shy purple violets, delicate lily of the valley, milkweed and chicory and Queen Anne's lace, giant mullein and sugar maples, tall hollyhocks leaning against the side of the barn; from golden roadside grasses and the sunlit ripples of the brook that bent around the yard like an elbow; from the wild blackberries and raspberries that grew in a tangle and scratched the unheeding hand; from the deep rich loam that fed the lettuces and carrots and round, red tomatoes; from the small ring of fairy flowers that grew beneath a slender birch.

I am from songs sung to make work less arduous and feet that danced when chores were finished; from a distant Native American woman of the Anishinabe tribe, from French explorers and settlers with names like Desrochers and Brien and Guertin; from the Dutch Longstreets and the English Clarkes; from the Bird Clan and the Hoof Clan, from Parisian huggers and kissers, and from cool, remote aristocrats.

I am from the lovers of sweets and the corpulent, from engineers and artists and explorers, from students of history and teachers of science, from Civil War generals, and shopkeepers. 

From Yankee thrift, from"a stitch in time saves nine" and "pretty is as pretty does." From "waste not, want not" and "make do or do without." From "never look a gift horse in the mouth," and "always wear clean underwear in case you are hit by a bus." From ocean goers and river-crossers, from survivors of two World Wars and a Great Depression.

I come from rosary beads, sacred Sunday mornings, and black robed men and women, some of whom preached one thing and practiced another, whose meanness was covered by a thin veneer of charity, who drove me, finally, to seek a kinder, clearer way. And I am from distant Native American stock, from those who respected the land and conversed with the spirits, yet waged war on their enemies. 

I'm from far away places across the sea - Ireland, France, England, the Netherlands. I am from remote Canadian settlements and bustling Canadian cities. I am from the New World - dense woodlands and wide-open plains, New Rochelle, NY, the Massachusetts mill town of Holyoke, and of the rural Berkshire Hills. 

I'm from tourtieres (meat pies) and fruit pies with crusts made in heaven, from homemade chocolates and handmade lollipops. I'm from real butter and fresh eggs and whipped cream, corn on the cob and Boston Baked Beans, maple syrup and hot hasty pudding.

From the grandmother who came down from a north central Canadian farm to work in the silk mills at the age of 14 and who spent her first week's salary on a hat so large you had to peer under the brim to catch a glimpse of her face; from the grandfather who was part carpenter, part artist, part photographer, part magician; from a third cousin named Longstreet who, in the 1800s, commanded the Southern Army at the battle of Gettysburg.

I am from the old black and white photos of my childhood farm, of a slow pony named Blaze and a female cat named Roger. I am from a blue plaster bunny that appeared in my Easter basket every year for as long as I can remember; from the green china teapot my mother used every day; from the blue Columbia bicycle I helped to buy for myself with chore money. I am from the colored photos of cousins as teenagers, of weddings and the next generation dressed in old family christening gowns. I am scarlet sunsets over blue mountains, the hiss and tumble of coastal waves, the yellow corn pollen dust in August. I am birdsong and raindrops and star-bright nights. 

I am from the dust under my feet and the air that I breathe. I am from beauty and sorrow. I am.

Mirror, Mirror

On the northwest wall of my little cottage hangs a large gilt-framed mirror. It is round and slightly convex, so that if you peer into it, your face appears distorted. It used to hang above the fireplace in the house where I grew up, reflecting our daily comings and goings. I could stand in the kitchen doorway and see in duplicate my father in his green chair, my mother at the kitchen sink, and myself, dishtowel in hand, watching us all in the mirror.

I always have the feeling, when I look at it now, that if I stare into it long and deeply enough, I can see all my growing up years stored beneath its surface. There would be my first, halting steps, and the way I grabbed onto chairs and the coffee table and my father’s legs as I learned to walk. I would see my first haircut, the soft golden curls that framed my chubby baby face gone forever. Or I’d see myself sitting under my mother’s piano, a book in my lap, tracing the words with my finger as I learned to read.

My brother and sisters would be in the mirror, too. I imagine every game of marbles on the living room floor, every castle built with blocks, every game of bingo and lotto and Chinese checkers forever stored in its reflective depths. If I concentrated, I would see the day a professional photographer came to the house to take formal pictures of my brother in his crooked bowtie and my sisters and I sitting primly on the sofa in our matching plaid dresses, the mirror gleaming over our heads.

I would see my mother at the piano, playing The March of the Wooden Soldiers as we thumped around the living room in time to the music. There would be all the early suppers in front of the television, the noisy New Year’s Eve celebrations, the quiet evenings in front of the fire.

Every Christmas tree we ever had would shimmer with tinsel and colored lights behind the glass, every Easter basket revealed as the mirror recorded its hiding place. I would still be coming down the stairs in my green corduroy coat on Sunday mornings to parade back and forth in front of the mirror admiring my first high heels, or whirling about the living room with my mother as we practiced the be-bop with the kids on the Dick Clark show.
I would be there in my graduation robe, my wedding gown, my favorite bright red maternity dress. My children would appear there, snuggled with their Memeré on the couch or their Peperé in his big, green chair.

The only day not recorded in the mirror is the last day we both spent in that house. It lay on a chair, wrapped for moving, it’s face hidden as I said my goodbyes. I treasure that bit of glass and gilt now, for it’s more than just a mirror. It’s the repository of all my days.

Disguised

Me at age 6

 Running down the back side of a hill was a small stream that filled the gully left by the work crew when they widened the road last summer. On either side where the water had receded there were mud flats and beyond them, on the far side, the earth was cracked and craggy, looming up like miniature mountains, their tops rock-studded and grass-anchored.

Something inside me shifted. I was suddenly six again and imagining I was three inches tall, a trick of the imagination I often employed when I was young. I squatted my small self down at the river’s edge and stared up at the immense mountains on the other side. Grass grew past my shoulders and the river, fleeing downhill, was swift and deep and sparkling in the late afternoon sunlight.

I walked out into the soft mud and glanced behind me. There were my footprints, small and perfect, dissolving slowly in the wet earth. I looked about and found a twig. I scratched my name in the mud and watched the letters fill with water and fade like invisible writing. I looked about for a sturdy leaf to make a boat, wondering how long it would take me to navigate the river to the bottom of the hill.

Though the sound of a car brought me back to my proper size, I kept the sense of being a kid. I picked up a stick and dragged it along the pavement, liking the buzzy sound it made as it bumped along behind me. I walked the length of the gully to the bottom of the hill and there I knelt at the roadside. I put the flat of my hand in the gooey mud and pressed down, pulling it back with a squelching sound. I heard birds calling. Jays screeched in the distance and two ducks, flying low, quacked to each other. I flopped down in the meadow grass and swatted at bugs and watched the clouds change shapes. Blown by an invisible wind, they drifted above the trees and I watched until it seemed the clouds were standing still and the trees were moving.

I watched the faces in the cars that passed, solemn and serious, and wondered how they came to be that way, going home at the end of the day. Where was the happiness that came from listening to the birds, from seeing the fluttering green leaves of late summer? Where was the contentment of work well done, of supper waiting, and a vibrant sunset painting the sky?

I smiled at them and waved, a six year old disguised as a grown up, mud-splattered and dragging a stick. Some of them smiled back.