Home Grown

We had mice in our basement, and Mother didn’t want us to be afraid, so Nicodemus and Wooly were born from her imagination. We were rapt at her stories of the rodent couple. Their children dealt with challenges similar to our own. Imagine that! Doing the laundry in the damp cellar, Mother showed three-year-old me her squished finger with the funny-looking nail. “Don’t touch the wringer,” she warned. I didn’t.

There was a gorilla living in our attic. My brothers told me so and I believed them. I loved the view from the little attic window so high and far from the world, but I wouldn’t go up there by myself for a long time. When they found out about my gorilla nightmares, my brothers told me they were teasing. Freed from fear, I sneaked childish solitude at the tiny attic window. The world seemed big, waiting for me.

Climbing trees made me strong, especially Nature’s rungs on the red maple in our backyard. My brothers teaching me to hang by my knees made me brave. When they taught me to hang by my heels, I was glad Mother wasn’t watching. Snowmen with stick arms and snow forts armed with snowballs decorated the yard. We even built a snow horse one winter, big and sturdy enough to ride.

Lethal-looking black wasps built their gray paper nests in the sleeping porch upstairs. I kept my distance from them. Daddy taught us ping-pong up there, and the wasps stayed away from our game. I often stopped on the way to the porch and opened the door to the laundry chute to peer at the basement’s concrete floor. The chute went all the way up to the attic too. I never leaned in too far—our childproofing back then was “No.”

My eight-years-older sister welcomed me into her room. What a surprise and privilege, since she was a Big Kid. She taught me bits of French every night before we went to sleep. I could soon count to twenty, ask and answer for names, and say please and thank you. I sat lonely, surrounded by our red plaid wallpaper, when she went away to college. I still cherish having her as my sister.

The kitchen was a haven. Eddie the Milkman would come in for a cup of coffee after delivering. In winter, I’d run to the icebox to scrape the cream off the tops of the glass bottles. Yum. When I was twelve, I helped Mother reorganize the cabinets to fit more in the crowded spaces. “You don’t need Grandma’s old dented bread pans, do you?” I asked. “Oh yes, I certainly do!” was her answer. “When I get overwhelmed, I throw those back and forth in the backyard until I’m tired. That’s why they’re so dented. You’ll understand one day.”

I grew up a little right then in the kitchen, imagining my mother being overwhelmed, pitching bread pans.