An envisioning . . . 1950 and the old castle outside Innsbruck.

Oh to be here.

February and a skiing holiday. Slopes in the morning with the children, fires to sit before all afternoon and cocktail parties every night.

Family friends not seen since before the war and some for not longer than that. Everyone shuffled from one house and country to another. Indeed, countries remade. At least two cousins ending up citizens of places that never existed except in someone’s head.

Interesting but hard, too. A new line where east meets west and places, things and people forever gone. Three estates and a place on the Dalmatian coast but only the ones in Innsbruck and Vienna left, the one up on the Baltic near Wittenbeck where Grandmother and her brothers and sisters learned to swim and sail forever gone. House still there but half-wrecked someone wrote and said.

But the people the same even if the rest isn’t. Old stories to share and the occasional manservant left to wax the skis.

Silver cocktail shakers shaped like penguins from when everyone had a hip flask before the rest of the money began to go.

A little left but only a squeak and a smile. Debutante daughters but in gowns from the shop instead of the dressmaker and a shared dinner at the big hotel. The same townhouse and the same dining room but half the silver gone and not wanting anyone to know. Impossible. The money needed to pay taxes. Two houses needed. Impossible to hold one’s head up otherwise.

Standing up a bit wobbly, but the photograph over the mantelpiece with the wolf’s head going all the way up to the ceiling taken down. A young man. Funny. All girls in the family but no. A memory. Great uncle’s godson. A little older but went to dancing school with the others. Must have not had too many dancing schools that year or he’d have learned to waltz somewhere else.

But a martini and another and another. Fuzzy enough and anything could be true. . .lost in time and the war against the tsar . .might have come back and gotten married . . . who knows . . . .better if you don’t.

Crown Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, eldest son of Kaiser Wilhelm II. via Facebook.

An envisioning . . .1900 and a summer afternoon winding down at grandfather’s dacha near Pavlovsk.

Oh to be there.

Summer under the white nights and no Petersburg nannies and their boring rules. Cousins to play with and dance concerts in the park to run around the outside of with no one saying anything. No, trying to make noise only when they applaud or when the drums are loud. Otherwise, grandfather coming out to snarl.

Grandmother letting the girls play jump rope with her ropes of pearls and Mother letting everyone run free. Always worried about what they think at the embassy next door, but those people gone back to Berlin to meet with their Kaiser.

Mushrooms to find in the woods and a creek to swim in. Pony carts to ride around in and the tsar’s little cousins with one with goats up at the other end of the park. One the same age with a July birthday and letting everyone who came to his birthday party have a turn.

A summer village’s worth of dachas with grandchildren in each one. The ones next door to play with and the others further down. Same Sunday school in the winter, but everything having to be arranged and set up. Easier just to run over instead of wait for the coachman to have time after Mother paid her calls and Father needed the sleigh and horses to visit his clubs.

But everyone tired, the grownups napping Sunday afternoon away and up in the nursery trying to be quiet so they can sleep. Outside later but not until after the maids bring tea. The housekeeper on her afternoon off and Mother forgetting to come.

Fun it is. Time to go through everything in the closet that every child who has been a child in the nursery ever decided to keep. Half-forgotten much of it is but fun to look at. Dried flowers from some older sister, special rocks and a good luck pebble that someone brought back from a holiday in Finland. Old pictures in watercolor and chalk of Easter and one of great-grandfather jumping into the Neva through a hole in the ice on New Year’s day.

One of a little girl in the very back wedged in with ribbon bows in her hair. Sad later she was. Grandfather’s big sister it must be. Happy then but the big wedding to an army chap who died fighting the Turks.

But happy then . . .no way not to be happy . . .sun, friends and goat carts. . . What else does one need . . .

Princess Clotilde of Saxe-Coburg. 1855. Oil on canvas. Franz Xaver Winterhalter, painter (1805-1873). In the public domain in the United States because the artist has been dead over 70 years. via https://www.artrenewal.org/Artwork/Index/36473

An envisioning . . . 1990 and a sultry afternoon in Bridgetown, Barbados.

Oh to be here.

The trade winds gone off somewhere but back soon. Afternoon on the verandah in the old army barracks just up the hill from the beach.

Decades lived and not ending up where one would have thought. Bombay, London, and then first one West Indian island and then another. Weather better than England but the work much the same.

Like the stories Father told about the army moving him around but different. All French places, those were. French then, they were, but the family morphed somehow into an English speaking British bunch since.

The same tropical trees and almost the same smells. A going back if one squeezes one’s eyes tight enough shut.

The scent of curried goat from somewhere down the hill and music the other way. Mother in a sari and Father coming in the house in his cavalry boots with the heavy noise they made against the tile. A nurse whispering in at the other end of the verandah in the same sort of sing-song lilt.

But not the same. Life comes and gone, and India left. But still, things to hold in one’s hand that bring it back. Prickly and studded brighter than the sun. A turban ornament, but funny. Cartier, not Indian, really, but a shop in Paris where the cousins lived. For one of the grand balls they held in 1903 when the king’s brother came out from London. Delhi Durbar and everyone positively dripping diamonds.

Not exactly gone. . . well mostly. . . .Emeralds up and left but in one’s mind. . . .nothing ever really gone if you remember it . . .

This is not my story. It is, rather, the story of my Saint Lucian friend, Charles C., who was old when I was young. Son of a high caste Indian lady and a French army officer at the turn of the last century in Bombay, a time when that was not supposed to be.

Indian turban ornament and brooch (sarpesh). ca. 1900. Gold and silver set with emeralds, diamonds and a hanging natural pearl. Cartier Paris, maker. © The al Thani Collection. All rights reserved. Fair use license. Photo credit: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd. Image courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. via https://museumnetwork.sothebys.com/en/articles/historic-jewels-convene-at-the-legion-of-honor

An envisioning . . . 1935. . . December 31st at the best hairdresser in all of New York.

Oh to be here.

A big do, and every girl up and down Central Park West invited, at least all the ones that count.

A new frock that looks like the Vionnet frock Mother brought back from Paris that time.

Well, not the same, Mme. Vionnet not designing much anymore and all of it for older ladies, not young ones. Newer designers and satin to look like someone in Hollywood but the same wine red color with nail lacquer to match.

The Saint Moritz tonight and more packing tomorrow. Beach house near Havana for half the winter and Key West for the rest. Maybe somewhere else after or maybe not.

Hard. A bit old for debutante things and the escorts that they have. Another few years and too much time on the shelf. College men at the dances at Cornell but none of them having stuck. But tonight. Maybe. Someone’s older cousin down from Harvard Law.

Men to spin around a ballroom with. . .men to partner for a party breakfast so late it could turn into a ride down a bridle path in Central Park . . .hopefully one for good soon.

Menu card for New Year's Eve in the Colonnades Ballroom, Essex House Hotel. 1935. — This menu card, from the Museum of the City of New Menu card for New Year’s Eve in the Colonnades Ballroom, Essex House Hotel, New York City. 1935. collection of the museum of the City of New York. via https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2018/12/31/a-swanky-new-years-menu-from-1935-new-york/

An envisioning. . . 1970, three days and the rental house on Mackinac Island. . .

Oh to be here.

Everyone gone to Saint Louis for the weekend and the house to oneself. Mid-May, no one around and the house sort of ready for the season.

Food from the little grocer and lunch on the porch. Funny. No family and whatever one wants, not just what they say to eat. Muffins and eggs for breakfast with a plate covered with bacon. Two bowls of fruit for lunch and nothing for supper but a big bowl of shrimp and a jar of cocktail sauce with a flute of champagne. Healthy on Tuesday but not today.

The porches swept, beds made and the old towel rack in the maid’s bathroom covered with face cloths. Bag after bag of little shampoos and toothpaste to be put around. A pain, six bathrooms and each one needing three.

All right back then. Great-grandmother’s wedding present house. Wintering in Detroit and up on the island from June to September with a nurse for every child. The Detroit house gone after they lost all the money and winters in Florida in a tourist camp with the train up nearly as soon as the ice thawed. Their real home it was.

Games of sardines and freeze tag on the lawn. So many rooms that the cousins from down the road got lost playing hide and seek.

But fun now too. Only two weeks or maybe three and tenant hunting all winter. But worth it. Family homeplace with a boat house and a bunch of canoes. Long table on the porch for suppers with corn on the cob and three pitchers of iced tea as the platters of steak and bowls of salad make their way around.

But all that later. The last spot. Grandmother’s vanity with the drawer stuck. Funny. All the pictures taken out but one stuck inside with the names of the back. Great-grandmother and her little sister the year they lived in Paris.

A memory in flood and rushing back. . . In the gardens of the Tuileries, it must be and looking like little girls done up like the puffballs in the flower bed. . . A dolly apiece and a bonnet . . .happy they were there but only the one time. . .never got to go back, to Canada instead. . . but a happy bubble in time and that no one can take.

The daughters of grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia, uncle of the last tsar. Photograph ca. 1906. via Facebook.

An envisioning . . . 2017 and an afternoon to while away up in the cupola.

Oh to be here.

Afternoon to while away into evening up at the top of Auntie Agnes’s house in Knoxville. Cupola way up at the top with views to die for. Four flights of stairs to die for too but then no one able to follow up either. Their legs too short or too tired. Like being in a space capsule blasted sideways across the trees staring straight through the tree tops and watch the birds dance.

Mother having talked about spending entire afternoons up at the top of the house with a book and glass of water. Just as hot as anyone had ever said and the window sills just as covered with dead flies. But the windows forced open over who knows how many coats of paint and the flies swept out with an old newspaper into the world. Ice in the water bottle and the magazine from the Sunday paper to look through till dusk.

The magazine finished, and a run down to the box room and back up again. A calico covered box, completely stuffed. Auntie not wanting it looked at but all the way down on the front porch with that penetrating stare of hers but no way to see through tree branches, wood, and brick.

One old postcard and then more. Enough for three tables worth of people playing bridge if they were cards. Most of the synagogue where auntie’s parents got married but some others from when they held the Appalachian Exposition that time.

An American Indian girl posed against a studio mountain and a fountain. People weaving coverlets and others showing quilts.

But another at the very bottom. One of those places like they had in Asheville that time where you could rent a boat and paddle around. Fun it must have been and a relief from the heat.

Much coming but not there yet. Great uncle marrying auntie and that not having turned out too well except for the house. But to be courted in a boat . . . .heavenly. . . a boat, beau and a bunch of flowers. . . .all one needs and never needing more.

Chilhowee Park Boat House. 1910. Postcard. S. H. Kress and Company, publisher. C.M. McClung Historical Collection, Knox County Public Library. Fair use license. via http://cmdc.knoxlib.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15136coll4/id/2782/rec/9

An envisioning . . . 2015 and a rainy day in a rented villa outside of Budapest.

Oh to be there.

A fortnight’s holiday turning into a month. Father busy in the city and Mother happy with her easel. Makes sense, an entire back bedroom for a studio instead of that tiny closet with a window in Prague.

Time to run through the fields and look for elves and fairies in the woods. Fairy circles, too. Both brothers saying fairies only live on clouds but no. Everyone with wings in fairy tale books living in a wreath of flowers in the grass. How it must be no matter what older people think.

Beds so tall they have stairs to get in at least in the old nursery. Very small the children must have been though not as small as fairies. The beds not wide enough for spread out wings so that they cannot have been, but almost.

Smaller than everyone last year at school. But fun being able to get into little places to explore. Cupboards with old paints and closets with ancient coats for dress up. Doll tea sets with cups and saucers small enough for the littlest baby doll in the world along with two teapots.

The back cupboard opened up and something poking one’s back. Getting out inch by inch and shaking what looked to be a century’s worth of dust off. An old picture. A little girl with a pink hair bow and ties on her shoulders.

No way to know. Everyone lost in one war or another and in who knows how many ways. Now, then and forever as far as anyone can see. But happy she looks with her own Mama and fairy circles to find . . . nothing more but all one needs. . .

Miniature of Princess Elizabeth of Hesse, later Grand Duchess Serge of Russia as a child. ca. 1874. — Miniature of Princess Elizabeth of Hesse as a child. ca. 1874. Sister of the last tsarina of Russia. Artist not known. In the public domain. via https://www.kisspng.com/png-princess-elisabeth-of-hesse-and-by-rhine-grand-duc-3126120/

An envisioning . . . 1980 and a winter house by the sea where Georgia meets Florida.

Oh to be here.

February and ice but no snow. Funny. A fortnight but somehow feeling like days without end till spring. Two weeks for each grandchild now but entire months then. Mother bringing everyone down on the train with a tutor for each one while Father stayed in the big house on Long Island with the Rolls Royce and chauffeur to get to the stock exchange.

Down by Thanksgiving and not back till Easter. Christmas with biscuits and corn chowder and church in the little chapel down the way.

No one learning much and wanting to go ice skating at the rink in Central Park but the grownups hating to be cold. Ancestors who grew up somewhere really warm, they must have had.

But old rice fields to run across and ditches to jump. The river to try to paddle to the sea in the old canoe. Falling in buildings to play in.

School friends missed but the teachers with their homework not so much. Mad they would be later. The rest of the class knowing twice as much by then, but not mattering how. At least two months before going back.

Two canes to get around and no more running down the drive but still the same air to breathe and the same Christmas Eve supper with the little tree. Bedroom on the first floor, not the third, but the same porch and easier to walk out to without all those stairs and yelling nurses.

Up to the nursery for a look around and sitting down hard at the old painting table with its mottled stains. Drawer pulled open and little sister’s pictures upside down. But something harder at the bottom in a frame. A treat and a memory in flood. The elephant to ride after the rocking horse stopped rocking and his mane fell out.

From Mother’s brother, the one who fought for the Boers and never came back. . . that sad but the elephant not . . . no . . . a fine memory and an entire day to sit and enjoy it . . .

William Henry Vanderbilt III riding on a toy elephant. ca. 1904. Image via Facebook. In the public domain due to age.

An envisioning . . . 1992, Ontario and an old trunk in the ladies dressing room.

Oh to be there.

A new job for a new year. An old vaudeville theatre, it is. Well not much longer. Being reborn as a community center with a place for the ladies to sit and knit. Funny. Something they had done forever but bigger now and more room required.

All those years in graduate school in Paris and nothing but splinters and sneezes. An office yes but everything needing to be looked through. Three cousins wanting everything old and pretty and their mother rich and not someone to offend. No, better to look through it all and see.

Someone offering to help and one of the cousins up to look through things.

A good thing. Like a time capsule, it almost was. Manager with a hook to yank people who couldn’t sing off into the wings, movie screen for a curtain and a projection booth for movies in reels and then nothing. Bad part of town having grown around it and no one wanting to go anymore. Car parts for the shops for miles around instead.

Dust in sheets over everything and corner cobwebs that reached to the curtain rods and then to the light in the middle of the ceiling like children’s birthday party streamers. Windows you can barely see out of. Stage makeup so thick you’d have to break in down into little rocks of rouge with a sledgehammer.

But an old trunk way in the back of where the chorus girls used to change. Pictures in the bottom with no names. Forgotten when the show moved on to the next town. Used as a footrest by tiny chorines ever since and never opened again judging by how hard the lock had to be hammered to get it open.

But worth it. Two ladies dancing somewhere in the golden time. Canada to explore and lots of men from before they all died in the trenches in France.

But not knowing any of that yet . . .no . . . another Christmas celebrated and a new year to begin . . . always a good thing . . .something to look forward to and not the other way . . .

Two Vanderbilt women dancing on front of a Christmas tree. ca. perhaps 1910. via Facebook.

An envisioning . . . 1995, Quebec and another blizzard coming in.

Oh to be here.

Winter and more of those touristy sleighs with jingle bells heading down the road loud enough to drive one mad. Who would have thought it, really. South Carolina to grow up in and jingle bells on straps for the music teacher to shake at Christmas concerts. Not enough snow for a sleigh even an elf could fit into, let alone one for grown-up people with horses and all.

But a dashing husband in a white naval uniform and a chapel to get married in by the sea. So many countries lived in one can barely count them up. Aden with its sand, Okinawa and then Pensacola.

Warm that had been and close enough to go home every few months. If only. Life with no down coat or snow boots.

But no, the navy done and a job with a different place but one that kept just as many moving and shipping companies in business. Latvia and then Honolulu. South Africa and Iceland. All over just so there’s water someplace near.

But a postcard coming in the mail from that school friend who married the fellow from Key West and it all coming back. Christmas vacation under a beach umbrella and a bench to sit on barefoot with an ice cream and watch the world go by. Men pushing carts up and down selling ice-cold sodas and other men with hamburgers and hot dogs.

But all of it warm and that day after day. Little skirts, t-shirts and flip-flops and a girl cousin or two. . . .perfect . . . did it end or did it not . . . all there if one but sits on the beach and remembers it back . . .

Bathers On Lauderdale Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Florida showing New Lauderdale Beach Hotel in background. Vintage postcard. via https://floridarevealed.tumblr.com/post/153556394599/why-i-am-thankful-for-florida