My Space

I have decided that when I don't really have any thoughts of a philosophical nature, I will pick a picture from the albums and tell you my memories related to that picture. For my kids, it will be an opportunity to get the 'senior stories'. For me, I am going to try to look back with a new eye, one that will see something that is hopefully more inspiring than my feelings of the past usually are.

This picture of me was taken in December of 1967. If you look carefully, you can see the electric candlestick in the window. My Mom always put those candlesticks in the windows at Christmas. I am not sure why because she always complained about the process. They fell off the windowsills easily, especially with six kids knocking around in the house. But I alsways loved having the candlestick in the window. They were the yellow-orange bulbs and I loved the light and color they cast at night. I could read in bed late at night from the light cast just over my head and that was a real treat because reading was the most important thing for me growing up.

The night stand you see in the picture is one of a pair of end tables given to my parents as wedding gifts. There is a sense of continuity from those beat up old tables because my mother used them with us (we damaged them enough as kids that they weren't any good in the living room any longer) and I used them for my kids and now you can find them in Anya's home. They really are starting to look like hell but, to me, they also look like family. The striped curtains were made by my mother and, if I recall correctly, were various shades of pick and purple.

The bed you see is a maple twin bed frame. My parents went to Nashua NH one day to by furniture for 'the girls' (me and my sisters' Patty and Martha). All of kids stayed in the car while they went in to pick out the furniture. In those days everyone left their kids in the car! We were so excited when they came out and told us furniture was going to be delivered! We were rarely given the treat of anything new and this was a huge purchase! The furniture was delivered shortly after we were moved into a room my father built for us girls. It was a very large room (the one in the picture). When all of the furniture was in place, we had three twin beds, three dressers, a huge closet, a bookcase for me and a few nightstands. And there was room to move around!

My bed was always under that window and I would sometimes lay down with my head at the foot of the bed so that I could look out the window and stare up at the night sky. There was a minimum of lighting then and we were way out in the sticks so the sky would be full of stars and the moon, eerie back lit clouds and the tips of the trees. In the summer, the window would always be open. We ran a fan blowing out in the dining room and all bedroom windows would be open to draw in the night air. This was as close to air conditioning as we got. Since my bedroom window was the closest to the window with the dining room fan, I think I got the best convection going. I think back to how if felt to be hot and sticky and it was still fairly light outside in summer, and then that breeze of cool air would come through the window and skim down over my body to cool me and it was heaven!

That bed was MY SPACE in a crowded and noisy world. It was my refuge. It had invisible walls and doors. It had a real window. It was great! By the way, in order to stay positive, I did not comment on the girl in the picture. :) That back hair cut and skinny legs were life long dilemmas for me, but she is smiling because she has her own space!