New England Home 1
Sticky wet old wood, curving banister, beautiful vibrant house. Plant green and wind chimes stroked by fingertips and air every afternoon, wooden staircase climbed by many a small foot. Teakettle whistle, a hand crank for windows letting yummy kitchen smells escape to the neighbors a few feet away next door. Toys on the floor, a pot and wooden spoon, an amber medicine jar with a tiny bell in it to shake. The sound of baby opera in the back seat with Wicky as we speed down the highway to the next New England destination.
Green plastic barrettes formed into perfect plastic bows snapped to my scalp to keep loose golden threads from falling in my face. Old wood painted bright blue with dark purple, forest green and creamy white trim. A sculptural arch of chairs will someday be erected over the impossibly beautiful front garden, my mother’s wild art mind achievement. Inside meets outside with every window open exposing pink and peach walls to the moist air and cricket chorus of summers end in New Haven. This is my home, my place, my youngerhood happy home. Brown paper bags filled with crab apples and horse chestnuts, salamanders lurking in the huge woodpile to the right side of the house a mound of mottled grey with shocks of lime, green lichen.
The Storytellers Path
The path that starts through the garden, best if taken bare foot so your feet will sense the earth as your heart and mind fuel the inner story. Round' the corner where the clapboard is kicked in exposing new hiding places under the front stoop. Where wasps and secret childhood messages and maps are scrolled across the base layer of an ancient home. Creep along the narrow, dark, north facing ally wedged between house and bushes. Bushes your father trimmed sometimes, leaf droppings becoming Pagan princess attire. Round' back to the basement door made of thin grey tin, a perfect slide and place to stop and think, perched across the top like a bird. Squish your toes into the rotting crab apples and stroll to the other side, just past the window to the interior world, full of human noise and kitchen scent. Step over the spiky, green hulls of horse chestnuts as you approach the sawdust scent of the ripe pile of wood, ready for stacking to heat a winter home. Your legs sweep past the fresh scented mint to your right and your circle is complete back to the front garden path, ready for the next beginning. You have laid the walkway for creativity. This is the place of imaginative play and luscious inspiring alone storytelling time.
