Oh to be here.

The old house in Belarus and a treat just having arrived. Invasions and wars that just keep coming along like the units that march in the May Day parade in Moscow. One done and thinking you can go but another something that ties up all the trains only a hop, skip, and jump behind.

But all worth it. Grandmother’s house where Mother was a little girl before the big war that reshuffled everything. Trains to take to whatever big city struck Grandfather’s fancy and summer vacations on beaches everywhere in Europe that they had sand. Finland, France, and Dubrovnik, wherever anyone wanted to go. Coins flipped every spring. Maps pulled out with passports stuck full of stamps by the time anyone was big enough to go to school.

Different after that and Vienna near impossible let alone Paris. But all right. Someone new for a tsar and the old tsar gone.

All right but a smaller place and the house nearly cut off what with everyone being someplace else.

An hour looking through the old chest in the hidden place behind the night nursery closet and another in the hiding place in the attic. Funny. People having run through like a river and that over and over again, but the old things not found. Must not have been looking for them.

But a treat at the bottom of the second chest. Mother when she was little that winter in Odessa. A coat with swansdown and a big bow on her head from what must have been the finest children’s dressmaker.

Happy and bundled up with love. . . Life and a husband that goes from place to place and never sticks. . . a home that stays in place but not for much longer . . but a mother to love you and that’s all you ever need.

Oh to be here.

The French Riviera and spring a long way away. New bathing suit a bit too low cut but all right for this beach. Something to leave behind in the spring. Likely to have someone call the police over it in the Hamptons and that one doesn’t need.

The sun warm and the wine in its bottle almost hot. A pity. Cook using all the ice up on last night’s gin and tonics and shrimp cocktail. Nothing left to chill anything in the morning. But someone coming down with one of those sarong things and then the restaurant on the bluff for lunch.

A bit more time to drowse away and time drifting away. Funny. Even the seagulls’ whoop changing. The rooks up in the tall pines around the school and their caw instead. Strange. Mother thinking a four-year-old would want to be in a boarding school with all those nuns in their habits with so many layers of cloth that their hugs hardly registered at all.

But part of it fun. Halloween with everyone in the same colored costume with the ears. Like the Martians in the funnies in the paper. The same sick green. No ray guns but someone’s big sister to take everyone around. Bags and bags of candy and horses that spooked.

Best Halloween for decades . . . New Jersey once little brother came and no candy there . . . no coal either but no fun . . .

Oh to be here.

Same Florida but like stepping through a looking glass into the other side. Old person things to do, not young. Bingo instead of speakeasies and a bathing suit that shows more skin than anyone could back then. But not as much as anyone young and from a boring store, not the fun one where the granddaughters shop with the music blasting with what’s on the radio.

But life a joy wherever you find it. A husband still and that a treat. Shuffleboard by the pool and lunching with the ladies at a different spot every Friday in season.

Funny. More places for rich people before. Needing more money and coming down on the train for the winter. Well, no sense in coming for a week, not when it took days to arrive and not hours.

But the salads with more kinds of things in them now. The oranges just the same with the same grand smell when the trees go into bloom.

But the memories there. Books to look through and albums for the grandchildren to see, all needing to be done before they descend for Christmas.

Wanting to know the stories but maybe not this one.

The day the boyfriend of the girl down the street let her borrow his motorcycle and that wild ride on the beach. . .The thing tipping over as a big wave came in and the boots ruined but that one didn’t know. . .No, a wave and an adventure and another one after. . .young and riding into a future that will never end.

Oh to be here.

Japan in spring and cherry blossoms everywhere like the pink eiderdown in the nursery in Anacortes with its pink tufts. Twigs that stick out instead of goose feathers.

Father a fisherman but Mother collecting goose feathers and down on every outing to anywhere. Money saved and an eiderdown to sell perpetually in the quilting frame that got pulled up to the living room ceiling every night during fishing season. During the winter when Father was around not so much. No, the thread ends and bits that wafted down drove him crazy. Enough white water spray up in the Arctic, he said, with no need for a thread variety the rest of the time.

But a happy life with much joy and a shore to sit on. Different now. An important husband met at the university and a different life with dreams of living fish leaping onto wooden decks instead of ones on platters for dinner.

But some of it not as fun. Big dinners and piers to visit in summer. But not like the one in Venice with the aquarium and the dolphins that swam in a circle. Grandparents that lived five blocks away and visit after visit week after week until it was time for school and to wait for the fleet to return.

Not perfect, no, but close. The same ticket lady, the one who went to church with Grandmother and let everyone have a second free turn every other week. A treat it was. Nothing like that free now but who knew that then . . .  a blessing to remember and something to never forget.

Oh to be here.

July beginning and the tourists turning up looking for lobsters. The sun the same but the rest not. Well, a village here, too, but by the sea, not a forest.

Someone who fishes instead of someone who logs and no one even knowing what a smoke jumper is. Funny, trees all over Maine but not the catching fire every summer and burning up kind.

Brothers in law that work up in Bar Harbor for the rich people in the summer instead of growing wheat near Deer Park. Nieces that are maids and children’s nurses at the big summer hotels, the ones where they come up from New York and Boston to stay until the leaves on the trees start to change.

But all right. Life changing in an instant. Fellow out in Spokane just out of the service and visiting someone. Waiting for the bus and ended up on a date with the same fellow after sitting on the same bench. City Hall, a baby, and New England with a New England husband.

All right but yet . . . no mountains or fields of wheat . . .lobsters that jump out of the sea and fish that swim towards shore . . .but mountains in one’s mind . . . all that really matters . . .

This is not my story. It is the story, rather, of my friend Georgia C. Growing up in rural Washington State in the 1930’s she met her husband who was out there in the army, followed him east and never lived near her childhood home again except for numerous visits.

Oh to be here.

College dorm in late spring and finals soon to begin. But a sunny day and those there are never too many of. No, better a Saturday spent with the girls down the hall having a picnic with frozen fingers from retrieving the beer on its string under the water. Only the gym teacher who likes to hike around the edge to get mad and him off to some conference for the weekend.

Hot dogs roasted on sticks in the fireplace at the edge of campus, and a few pickles swiped from the dining hall. Ground still muddy in places but what boots are for. But dry patches to spread out blankets and all the books back on the desks.

Wildflowers to wander around and look for but no hoop rolling required. Not like those more famous women’s’ colleges where you have to put flowers in your hair and do things that would make anyone’s boyfriend cringe if he could see.

Life later and men and children to tend but all right for now. . . just oneself to look after. . .friends for the day and friends forever all one’s life long. . .

 

 

Oh to be here.

A good visit with Grandmama and the children having fun. Easier. Townhouse in London and Christmas but everyone stuck inside most of the time. Not like the island in July with something new to explore every day and islets to row out to for picnics.

A treat. The job ended and the next one yet to start. Hard what with the interviews and all but more time at least for a while. No jobs in Skye at least not for that sort of thing and a hacking outfit worn each day instead of a suit and pearls and a nervous attack each time the interviewer opens his mouth. No little white gloves, either. Part of life in London but hands free here. Funny. Everyone else liking them but so itchy they always are. But something ladies need at least in the big places.

Time to breathe free and rest. Well, almost free. Grandmama needing help going through things in the back maid’s room to make room for a nanny for the smallest grandchildren. Box after box of who knows what, only one maid for decades and the other room allowed to fill up.

Three hours until tea and time to begin. Some fizzy pop and a deep breath as dust rises into the air from the portfolios stacked in a heap.

But something fun. Two boys and a picture from way back.

Grandmother’s uncle it must be or a cousin. . . hard to know . . . not living all that long in the end. One taken at Rooiwai fighting the Boers and another drowned getting drunk and falling off a bridge near Victoria Falls. . . .far away yes but home now . . .all that counts.

Oh to be here. Train from Elmira to Chicago and then another for home. Nurse in tow but a husband that has to work. Better, in a way, Mother not being that fond of him and he not liking hiking out at the house in Buffalo Creek. Good at making money and all that but not an outdoor kind of fellow though one who always looks swell in a Brooks Brothers shirt.

But all right. Both boys in the bottom bunk and nurse in the top. Old enough they are. Not like the last time. Only one but that one but still nursing and having to be all together.

No, grown-up time this way and a break in the club car and visit with the other ladies. All from out West not East, they are. Funny. So many going out there to the consumption places you’d think there’d be one or two. Must be running their own trains. Not like those trips to go grandparent visiting on Lake Erie when school got out. No, people hacking up and down the car and mother with endless masks and fretting.

A day out of Chicago and another one or two but worth it. Fresh air to breathe that gets cold at night and no lakes for people to try to make someone swim in. No, too many lakes now and no mountains.

But still. Happy and a memory. . . enough money to come every other year and a sister to love . . .all that counts. . .

This is not my story. It is, rather, the story of my grandmother Genevieve P. New York born she was raised in Denver but married a fellow New Yorker and so would take her boys on the train west to visit her family every few years.