Grandma's Attic

Today is a bad day physically. I can do little more than sit and breathe. I choose to retreat into memories of better days, and am happy to share with you one of those. Much more entertaining than listening to me moan.

The door to Grandma's attic looked like every other door in the upstairs hallway overlooking the stairway banister - stained black, austere, with dark brass knobs. You would have thought it the door to just another bedroom. But oh, the adventures that lay beyond its solemn sternness! We rarely were allowed the privilege of even peeking through the keyhole much less ascending the steps to the realm above where lay treasures of the highest magnitude just waiting to be discovered.

Once in a blue moon, usually on a rainy afternoon, when we kids were visiting for the summer and bored from being cooped up inside, Gram would make some excuse to go to the attic. Looking back, I suspect it was all a plot to get us out of her hair when we had become particularly grouchy or boisterous and wild. She never let on, of course, but we would suddenly find ourselves huddled quietly behind her as she bent over the lock, breath baited as she s-l-o-w-l-y turned the key with that scracky sound of metal resisting metal.

She would pause with her hand on the knob for just a second before pulling the door open. The foul air rushed up our nostrils, forcing us to step back involuntarily until it swooshed on by. We peered up the dirty white steps that seemed to arise straight upwards into the dim light above. All was silent except for the pounding rain. We shivered collectively while Gram stepped on the first step, testing it a bit before trying the next one. There was no hand rail here, no risers covering the plaster slant of the wall beneath the stairs, the wall which formed part of the closet in the bedroom just next to us, the one with the four poster bed and the metal crib.

One by one we crept up the stairs on hands and knees, frightened of falling headlong to the hall floor below. As our eyes peered over the top of the attic floor, we could see Gram fussing and mumbling beyond us, her hands flailing the air as if chasing bees. We knew she was reaching around for the pull string for one of the four bare lightbulbs that hung suspended from the bare rafters in the eaves. Eventually she managed to grab one and give it a yank.

In the dim light that barely emanated from the single bulb, the dark shapes and mounds about us became more recognizable. Of most interest to me were the steamer trunks that were plopped here and there in between stacks of old pictures still in huge ornately carved frames and broken old fashioned tricycles, tall mirrors that sported long and serious cracks in their glass, and boxes of various decor and detritus. If I were lucky, Gram would open one and examine the contents, holding this item or that and telling us little stories about what the thing was and how it got there.

What glorious history lessons we drank in! This was way better than visiting a museum. Where else could you put your finger in the mouth of a doll a hundred years old to feel the delicate porcelain teeth or examine an old fashioned straight razor complete with leather sharpening strop? What curator in their right mind would allow you to try on clothes from decades ago, all yellowing and musty in their carefully wrapped tissue paper or actually have a pretend tea party with the smallest china tea set I have ever seen, all rosy pink with hand painted flowers and real gold leaf trim?

Oh, the hours we spent up there while Gram pretended to look for some long forgotten item, the likes of which she could not specify? What did it matter that the whole space smelled hot and dusty or that the paper wasps battered their angry wings against the windows, forgetting that the crack right next to them would have granted them freedom anytime they wished? Who even noticed when Gram wandered downstairs to the kitchen to begin supper preparations, boiling up water to douse fresh corn, slicing the juicy warm ripe tomatoes, frying up hamburg?

Not us! Our little fingers explored worlds long gone and yet to come for hours on end until someone suddenly shouted "Hey! The rain stopped!" and everyone bumped down the ragged steps on their hinneys to dash outside and explore new wonders opened up by the rain. I was always the last one down the steps, standing on my tippy tippy toes to reach the light string and pull it out, to shut the lid of the last open trunk, to tuck the broken trike safely out of harm's way. I would stand for just a minute at the bottom of the stairs as I turned the key in the lock, tucking away the look and feel of our adventures for the next rainy day when I am prevented from the normal course of life by storms.

Storms like this one I am living today, far away from a house long since torn down and people long since gone. Still, I find myself standing at the foot of the attic stairs, my hand on the key, willing to reopen those adventures of my childhood, to recall the smells and textures of centuries past. I can almost feel the swish of Gram's summer dress and the roughness of her fingers brushing my bangs from my face. How amazing that she can still take the sag out of the disappointment of a storm interrupted day and turn life into an adventure worth jumping into.