Oh to be here.

Summer come around again in all its glories. A different house rented but almost the same as the other. Row of cottages up a dirt lane from the road and the one at the other end.

But the same porches and Edwardian everything. Like one of those great camps up near Canada that they talked about in the old days at the estate on Long Island. All wood other than the glass in the windows with no stone or at least not where one could see. The same wood wrapping around just about everything outside but made out of driftwood, not tree branches that had grown around rocks.

But camping in. Parlor with a kitchen behind, stairs so steep they could break your neck and two bedrooms up at the top. A tiny dining room with enough room for a doll family to sit and eat but that not mattering. No, together. Impossibly hard, grandchildren that lived around the edge of all seven seas and every airport in creation seemingly visited while making their way to Cape Cod.

But all right. Two weeks with everyone and the rest of the summer to research for the new book. Big advance from the people in New York but getting going a bit complicated. Crate after crate of papers about grandfather before he got old and famous and a need to spread the contents out over every inch of floor space.

But the smallest opened. Half the bed it takes up but a start. Old letters with drawings of childhood homes and pictures of long-dead pets whose names no one knows. But a photograph down near the bottom. All dressed up like a ring boy in a wedding next to enough flowers to fill a florist’s shop.

Hair the wrong color. . .great uncle it must be. . .Easter maybe or perhaps dancing school . . . unlucky with the ladies and divorce after divorce but no way to know then . . . happy in the moment. . . all one has.

Envisioning itself is wrapped around the photograph. The location with the row of Edwardian cottages is based on a summer house my friend Lynne L. lived in one summer many years ago.

Oh to be here.

Texas and sun as hot as it ever gets but a cooling spot on the back porch swing.

Air conditioning inside beckoning but not yet. Bad ankles and bad who knows what. Easier to let one’s mind drift somewhere more fun in the heat. Drowsiness making, it is, and a perfect place to spin memories into dreams.

Maid bringing out a glass of sweet tea and a cookie. Turn around the back yard like the doctor says. Better just to sit no matter what they say but half the family on the other side of the windows and likely to say something later. Three walks past the flower beds they want, but the other two easy to stretch the truth about.  No one else up at dawn and the dog not going to tell.

But not understanding. No, more fun to think about before. Miles to run and dances at the big hotels on Saturday night. Dancing school before that with boys that stomp on one’s feet but something shining back there behind a wall of frocks with silk sashes with fringe that kissed one’s heels.

Summer at auntie’s in Galveston, it was, the year before the hurricane washed it away. But no one knowing it then .  . . .no a little girl, her doll and a new hat for her birthday . . .a cake and ice cream future shining and a wish for the extra candle . . . . not gotten of course what with the beach gone but still . . . not knowing it then and that being all that counts . . .

Oh to be here.

A North Dakota summer and it staying light forever. Dark eventually but plenty of time after supper for all the grandbabies to play outside until the streetlights go on. A treat for them it is, so bundled up most of the time.

So far north and what they are used to. Funny. Strange looks with every story about the house on Dauphin Island.

Alabama and far more golden sunshine it was. Outside all day year round and no winter coat. Indeed, barely knowing what wool was, what with living in a place so warm even sheets were too hot to sleep under by Easter.

But a tall, dark and handsome man wildcatting in the bayou and life changing. Following work instead of the sun and ending up by Canada. Impossible. Home still by a warm and shining sea but a family used to snow and ice and not about to move. Something about needing snow boots to feel normal.

But pictures in the bottom of the jewelry box to look through when it gets to be too much and memories coming back. The baby brother that died in Okinawa in that last charge up some hill or other and Mother. Morning at the beach and a picnic on the running board with sand in the deviled eggs and a mason jar of sweet tea.

Something to cling to . . .maybe next summer . . .maybe the one after . . .but under the rings and a safe place to live forever  . . .

Oh to be here.

New Orleans and back home after a summer visiting around wherever a cooling breeze can be found. Canada, South Dakota and the Fourth of July on a mountain peak up in the Rockies in Colorado.

Traveling fun but being home where gumbo doesn’t come out of a can even better. Accents that sound normal and flowers that linger. Funny. An odd thing to miss, but no. Snow around the inn with the fireworks coming down and all. Very pretty but odd-looking to anyone born near the bayou.

Feet a bit sore and knees that ache but a balcony to sit out on and watch the world go by and another facing the other way with a courtyard and birds.  Not Father’s, no, that one sold after one of the storms but this one the same if you close your eyes and pretend. Voices going back and forth and a whisper from the back where the grooms lived after the war until automobiles came in. That and the stock market going and the chauffeur departing for who knows where once the second war began. Shipbuilding down by Canal Street somewhere or one of those raincoat factories.

Two grandsons coming later and a dinner outing but time. Books pulled out and pages leafed through. Old friends, they were. Bookshelf to bookshelf and house to house with their own rest when everyone went away. The same old book smell as it must have been back in the way back time. No, that would never change.

But an old photograph for a bookmark that wasn’t there before. One of the grandchildren, maybe from one of those boxes of old papers in the attic.

A memory. All dressed up with hair curled up and almost looking like a girl. Mother, it would have been. Wanted a little girl and didn’t get one and hair curled on every fancy occasion thought of.

Junior page at the Mardi Gras parade though. Worth every minute with hair screwed up in papers. Riding through the middle of the city and waving while the king and queen sat on the float and bowed. That not so fun but the candy was. Someone afraid a child would be scared and a whole bag of it stuffed under a cushion.

Four pieces for every block and a stomach ache that lasted for days. . . worth it. . . like going to heaven and back . . .mile after mile of waving and beads being tossed but boarding school after . . .teased for years but one didn’t know it then . . .no happy and that without end . . .

Oh to be here.

Winter vacation and time to sleep in and not even think of school. The boys lots of fun but biology class not so much. One of those frogs to cut up making one want to be home feeling sick.

Plenty of nap time and four movie dates. Each with a different boy but no matter. No, two from the school but in different crowds. One met at an away football game in September and the other from the church. A need to keep their names straight but not too hard. Note taped to the inside of one’s bracelet and a glance before the lights dim.

Mother downtown having lunch with her photographer friend and no modeling jobs until March. Less spending money but more time to do what one wants instead of what one must. Well, sort of. Downtown all day being fun and another magazine ad to show around and make the other girls jealous. But stuck half the morning in a dress held together in the back with clothespins and not as glamorous as they all think though of course one lets them think whatever they want.

But the cook downstairs making lunch and no one to say no. The boxes of old pictures under Mother’s bed all dumped out on the bedspread in a heap. Most saying who but not always. But fun.

One at the very bottom. A girl with her hoop not looking thrilled and her mother with the dog and the father too. Some sort of kin, they must be. So much black but what they all wore then. Like a funeral every day, it must have been.

Bright colors now but the rest the same. Having to pose for longer than one wants dressed up in fancy clothes. . . .who knows what happened to them later. . . no way to know . . . hopefully, it was all fun  . . . better not to know if it didn’t turn out all sunshine . . .

This is for my mother, Helen B. Guest Perry, who went to high school in suburban New York City though not Chappaqua. A model she was for various magazines with a zillion dates and rides home from the big city at 4 AM.

Oh to be here.

Harvard Square, Cambridge, and a living room with big windows the better to watch the students scull like a streak of lightning around the bend and back again.

Grandchildren and children and the same maid grown very very old. Still younger and that a blessing. Great auntie having been right about that. Better to have someone older around as long as you can so you can feel young.

Swarthmore a long time ago with its dreams of becoming not sure what. A fellow from Haverford to marry and what came after instead. Big house on the Main Line and another out on Block Island to summer in.

One on Block Island still there but no. No way to live there all the time. The wind whistling a bit too much and at an age when needing help is something never far away but no one closer than a few hours and a ferry ride away. Cambridge, its memories of cousin visiting and races run instead.

So long ago. Sometimes forever and other times only yesterday. Sports when almost no one did them. Boarding school and then college. Nearly every team tried out for and a spot on half of them. Every afternoon nearly in a middy and gym boots and a hope of more. But a memory forever. Captain of the baseball team and that no one can take away . . .a blessing . . .so much gone but memories you get to keep.

Oh to be there.

Sun rising over the Pacific and a big cup of coffee. Pancakes later once everyone gets up but peace for now and an ocean to watch. The best part, the water looking the same no matter where you went as long as you keep staring straight ahead and don’t look at what’s on either side along the beach. Bath and boat houses everywhere but all looking different from the land. But all right the other way, too. Looking like a black mouth with ropes hanging down waiting to swallow anything you can sail or paddle up.

Quiet now but not for long. The baby beginning to stir in her crib and the other three up after. Orange juice to pour and blueberries to pick through.

But the wind turning into a breeze and a bright day the radio said.

If only. Great grandfather’s summer house in the Hebrides supposed to have been much nicer. Must have been bigger with far more than four bedrooms to have had those Edwardian house parties. Ten bedrooms, at least, those needed and a nursery that took up all of the third floor instead of half. Guests that stayed for a month instead of a fortnight and enough time to read anything that turned up in the bookcase in the guest room in the very back instead of looking for something short. No, enough time to almost read all of “War and Peace”, a fog horn that almost never stopped and a bigger lighthouse sweeping light across the bedroom wall over the bed as it swept around in its circle going twenty miles out to sea.

But the living room just as nice and so many things brought over you can time travel through the old stories. Great grandmother sitting in the rocker by the fireplace reading to the little ones like Mother talked about and Great grandfather complaining about the man taking too long to bring in the lamps when it grew dark.

But the children having fun and that part the same. Nothing better than even part of a summer with a different cousin for every day and mood . . . grown up and then they moved and it was a letter writing thing but not then . . . stones to skip and races to win . . .and that till the end of time and into another. . .

Oh to be there.

Denmark for the summer and a treasure it is. Home in a way that the other house isn’t. The children all thinking it is and agreeing but not inside. An outside thing like a winter coat instead of a grown-up lady version of the tutu skirts the ballet dancers wear to dance.

No, Canada if you marry a Canadian gentleman and a family home but a home of the heart, no. Butter cookies that don ‘t taste as good and no Baltic smells.

Fishing boats though that are almost the same. Sometimes being able to squeeze your eyes shut and pretend. Back you go, patterns swirling against the sun and around again like one of those kaleidoscope toys. Canada, France after the first war and Ireland after the second.

But different. The other houses not the same with different echoes. Impossible. So different that even one’s favorite grandchild doesn’t want to quite believe.

The tsar coming and his mother each summer to her house at Hvidøre. Imperial children running everywhere and hide and seek along the beach behind the rocks. Father only a baron but no children living close and getting to play with them anyway. Grand duchesses the girls were called, but the doll tea parties were just the same.

Gone for a long time and in a horrid way but no one knowing then.  . . .No. . . holiday bare feet and time to run . . . run fast enough, and maybe it can all be made to change . . . .but a memory . . .safe forever where nothing can hurt. . .