The view from Vernon: More writing practice

I remember plaid Keds and a big belly and the tight grip of my grandmother’s hand around mine.  She wore dark dresses that skimmed her calves and tie-up shoes with small heels. Sometimes she wore a kerchief in her hair. I’m not sure if she wore one that day, but then again, I’m not remembering a specific day here.

 

Though one day I did wear a piece of paper taped to my forehead and the top of my braids. I was probably four. 

We were returning from our daily walk maybe to the park and the swings or to Jack's, a store across from Vernon Pizza where they sold a lot of penny candy.

   

We turned from Vernon Street onto View and came upon my friends playing house in a pine cave in the Wasgatt’s side yard. “What did you do to your head?” That was Michael Cannon, a son of my mother’s best friend. He was a few months older than me. His blonde hair was never more than an inch long. He pointed to the paper.

I hadn’t yet learned to be embarrassed. “Nothing,” I said. “I’m a nurse. I’m coming home from work. This is my nurse’s hat.”

I twisted my hand to break free and join my friends, but Ma said no because it was almost dinner time.

Our house was halfway down the hill, just four houses from Vernon, the main street in the neighborhood. We lived in one of the bigger three-deckers on a street full of them in a city famous for them. Like others nearby, the first floor was vanilla clapboard, while the top two floors were covered in chocolate shingles. 

My grandfather had died a few years before I was born, but his legacy was the green yard, overgrown but still beautiful when I was a little girl. My grandfather was also good with his hands and built the three-car garage that was slightly behind and off to the side of the house. But I’m sure when I was four I didn’t know that he’d built this garage that Ma and I were walking toward. I didn’t know then about the turkey he once raised in the cellar and killed for Thanksgiving dinner (my mother said it was delicious). My world at this stage of my life was the park, the pine cave, and the narrow steep driveway we had to climb to reach the back door.

I’m guessing as we walked we probably avoided the big bump in the center of the drive that the bottom of the Rambler always scraped against and my father always swore about. I may have tried to pick some of the red berries from the prickly bushes we passed, and it’s likely I noticed the fluffy blue hydrangea that sat under Ma’s bumped out dining room windows. Hydrangeas are still some of my favorite flowers, though I love lilacs more. We had a wall of lilacs in the backyard, with leafy fragrant nooks where I’d hide and read. 

Once in the house I liked to play rescue while Ma made dinner on the big gas stove. The yellowed linoleum would be a sea full of monsters, and the only safe places to stand were the red tiles that formed a sort of square in the center of the kitchen floor. I’d hop from square to square, rescuing myself from sea snakes and crocodiles and other slimy things. 

The scarlet table with silver trim was pushed against the long wall opposite the stove. After the spaghettios were heated up, Ma would sit at the head of the table with her back to the pantry. I would be on her left. She’d pour the spaghettios from the aluminum pan to our shallow plastic bowls, and always gave me most of the pasta. 

Then together, we would count the meatballs: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. We would each get three of the tiny meatballs, and Ma would carefully halve the remaining one so we had an even amount. Ma didn’t care much for spaghettios, but she loved her meatballs. 

While we ate, I would rub my palm over the cool surface of the shiny metal table. It fascinated me. Our table upstairs was wood. 

I was very close to my grandmother. When I first wrote the skeleton of this, I was at a poetry workshop in Santa Fe. We were given this prompt: I remember. And then this came pouring out.

What I wrote I hadn’t thought about in maybe forty-five years. These images rushed into my head, but I don’t know why. Maybe someday I’ll have to do something more with this.