I Remember.......

I remember……

The slap of  water hitting the side of my grandma’s cottage waking me on summer mornings, as she hosed things down against the coming heat

I remember the smell of the air, lake-scent and weeping willow, bathing suits hung on the line that never dried out between swims, the hammock under the willow tree, where I read and dreamed on summer afternoons

I remember the smell of sweet pea and pinks, and the tall hollyhocks planted near where grandpa parked his brown and white Ford, how he said Ford was the best, and he drove that car forever. I remember his gruffness, but also the twinkle in his eye, and the shiny dime he would send me in its own small envelope, when I was back in the city with my parents

I remember that, back then, a dime could buy a  popsicle,  some penny candy and Dubble Bubble

I remember that my grandma’s house was peaceful, was my safe place, so quiet I could hear the metal clock on the kitchen window ledge ticking and tocking from every room in the house

I remember Grandma’s tea parties, card tables set up in the small living room for bridge, fancy teacups, sandwiches and dainties

I remember playing Old Maid with her, and how she always fooled me into picking the Old Maid, and how she'd laugh at my chagrin. When I tried the same tricks with my grandchildren, I could never fool them. I was always the Old Maid. Prophetic, as it turns out.

I remember sitting with grandma in the living room, looking into the small gas fireplace and her telling me to look for the fairies dancing in the flames

I remember summer afternoon thunderstorms, and swimming, once, during a storm, the lake full of ripples, the sky dark grey and lowering, the scent of metal in the air as the lightning flashed

I remember picnics at Mission Creek with my cousins; the time Jeanette got stung by a bee; the time the husky, Mickey, rolled in something awful, and we gasped for breath, laughing, all the way home

I remember Big Boy, the huge black cat, and how my grandma would hold the door open for him, then let go of it too soon so he had to streak out, yowling, to avoid getting his tail caught

I remember the Big Brown Chair, and my cousin Teddy and I vying for who got to sit in it. I remember him looking into the yard, saying he saw a little brown bunny; when I got up to look, he leaped into the chair and said I was the silly brown bunny that let him have the chair

I remember riding horseback with my grandma at Mission Creek, and how my horse took off, galloping along the trail, and I thought he was going to jump the gate at the end; how I felt exhilarated and ready to jump, but he stopped just in time. The best ride I ever had, and also the last as after that I was too nervous.

I remember having just turned fourteen, the summer my father died, sitting reading in a chair in Grandma’s front room, when my cousin Charlie arrived for the funeral, and his astonished, “That’s Sherry?” because I had grown and learned how to do my hair.

In memories of childhood, it is always summer, and I am always at my grandma’s, where I spent every summer of my childhood, where I learned what safety felt like. I have re-created that same peacefulness in my own home ever since.

Day 21 of Wild Writing with Laurie Wagner