81 Charles Avenue

The window of my upstairs attic bedroom faced the back yard and was framed by ruffled, sheer curtains of the palest pink. My brothers would play outside but I stayed up in my girl sanctuary -- a lavender wallpapered room. There, I played with my kitten and read books every day. In that room, was my portable record player -- I knew every word to every song that spun around in black vinyl in those years. My cat would watch me, amused, as I danced and perfomed in the full length mirror that hung behind my bedroom door.

My mother used to carry soup upstairs to my room when I was sick, and always on the aluminum silver tray, she would write a note or bring me something to color. I could hear her feet padding up the wooden stairs and creaking across the hardwood floors as she looked for a place to set the tray. She always took a moment to smile at my vanity table arrangement of Avon perfume bottles and jewelry boxes. Mom needed a spot in her world to be a little girl, too, and I think that visiting me in my room gave that to her.

In the years that I lived in that house, my brother and I always walked to school, taking shortcuts every day through the Stoughton cemetery. I carried a briefcase and imagined myself to be a young Maria as I skipped without a care through the gates of the cemetery singing quite fearlessly, "Nobody solves a problem like Maria..." as she did in "The Sound of Music".  I would arrive to school or home again, sweaty and flushed, and not the least phased by the fact that this trip, come rain or shine, was about a mile and a half each way. That is what umbrellas and boots were made for, of course, and in those days, simply opening up an umbrella could inspire a scene from "Singing in the Rain" on those trips home.

Waiting at home each day was my mother, undoubtedly already at work in the kitchen and with a cold glass of milk and a Hostess cupcake or other treat ready on the Formica counter top. The kitchen was avocado and harvest gold, with pops of bright orange in the mugs that hung from little c-hooks under the cabinets where I would snack. While I devoured the treats she prepared for me, my mother let me rattle on about my day and spread out all my school papers on the counter for her to approve with great enthusiasm and admiration. In the background, there was always dinner baking -- faint streams of meatloaf, brisket, chicken or something wonderful that would appear in a few hours. Always there was a full pot of coffee, freshly brewed, just in case someone stopped by ... and often, in this home, people actually did drop in. Quite often, in fact.

We had one telephone that hung on the wall, only one, if you can imagine that. It was a new and modern shade of avocado, too. If we were on the phone, a caller would get a busy signal and have to call back later. There was no answering machine to take messages, or interrupting beeps to notify us that someone else was calling. No one would interrupt our sacred dinner time by calling to sell us anything. Home was where all that outside transacting ended and where nothing but the inner workings of family life was allowed to unfold.

81 Charles Avenue was such busy place. Everyone had assignments but in the early evenings, work was done and we could all crowd together in our family den to watch our one and only black and white TV. There were only a few channels to choose from ... this was the day of variety shows and cowboy westerns. No way to fast forward through commercials or record a show to view later... it was a time to stop or not stop, and life didn't end if we missed an episode or two. On the evenings that our home was filled with dinner guests, we assembled in the big added on room with the spinet piano in the far corner. There was always music being played on that piano and my memories flood me with images of my mother singing while my father played to accompany her, maneuvering the piano keys in his heavy-handed, grand way.

As a child, I remember being proud of this house. It didn't seem small to me, although now by comparison as I have adapted to such a different life, perspective has certainly changed things. These days, 1400 sqf. would be considered a cramped way to raise three children in a family of 5. Back then, it felt spacious and grand at times. Other times, such as when I removed my bedside lamp with the ruffled lampshade and placed it inside the eaves of my room so that I could curl up with a collection of pillows, my books and a cat, it was the womb in which I grew.

Somewhere in that attic corner, under a loose floor board, I hid away my first journals. I don't remember retrieving the chocolate-brown, lined composition notebook with the yellowed pages when we moved away. In those journals, I wrote poems of where I would be later in my life. I wish I knew where they are today and if they were ever discovered later by the new occupants of that home.

I wonder how many families moved in and out of 81 Charles Avenue over the years that have passed since we migrated away. I wonder if there are lingering scents of brisket and banana bread still remaining in any of the walls. I wonder, too, if there are layers and layers of wallpaper to peel away to reveal a confirmation of these snapshots of the aromas, sounds and colors in my head today.

I am 3000 miles and about 5 times that many days removed from this place. Still, I can simply close my eyes and I am there, the kitten purring in my lap even now.