Tuesday, November 9, 2010

The Downstairs Bedroom at 421 Pine Road

In my 'Writing As a Spiritual Practice' spiritual formation group today, our prompt was to draw the floor plan of our childhood home and then write about one room. My drawing was awful and isn't worth reproducing, except maybe for the Christmas tree I drew in the living room. But here's what I wrote about the downstairs bedroom at 421 Pine Road.

I have a hard time recalling the exact layout of the house at 421 Pine Road. Some of the problem is that I am spatially challenged. Some of it is that the layout is similar to that of my parents' current house. There are a few differences. 421 Pine Road has three bedrooms upstairs and one downstairs while 2335 Richardson Drive has all four on the second floor. And 421 Pine Road has a spacious laundry room that was great for giving the dog a bath, stashing muddy boots, and being in time out. 2335 Richardson Drive just has a laundry closet by the garage, so all the laundry has to be corralled more efficiently.

I had the best room at 421 Pine Road. Well, I started upstairs, but by the time we got to three Howell children, I moved downstairs and took over the guest bedroom. It never stopped being the guest bedroom. I got used to relocating to the extra bed in Grace's room when company came.

My room was probably bigger than my parents', and I had my own bathroom, where one hermit crab after another lived for several years. The huge mirror that all but covered one wall always frightened me after an encounter with the "Bloody Mary" legend, where you say "Bloody Mary" 3 times and turn around. You're supposed to see Queen Mary's severed head in the mirror, and I swore I did. The layout of the bathroom allowed for even more terror in the form of my dad slipping a hand through the door to turn off the light while I was in the shower. He did this the day after we watched the movie Psycho, and I screamed bloody murder.

Back to my room. There were glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, painstakingly placed in the patterns of constellations among meticulously spaced out planets by my dad and me, who subscribed to an astronomy magazine for much of my childhood. The stars were more concentrated in the corner originally occupied by my single bed, and they felt far away when a double bed replaced it and switched sides of the room.

My walls were a hideous sea foam green, a color that I picked out and which my mother allowed me to use for some reason. But it was mostly covered by posters, anyway. Star Wars, sports heroes, later on musicians and actors. I seem to recall a calendar or two being dismantled so that pictures of horses and dolphins could serve as decorations. The furniture was solid wood, a whole bedroom set that now resides at 913 Burch Avenue here in Durham, but not in my upstairs bedroom because it is too dang heavy.

Even though I had my own room, I still longed for a secret space. I remember one night when my mom found me in my closet with the light on, reading far past my bedtime as I so often did. My first-floor bedroom was never wholly private. I was right next to the den, so on more than one occasion I emerged bleary-eyed to make my parents and their friends feel guilty for vocalizing their excitement over a late-night basketball game. As I got older, though, I began to join in, cheering on Duke and appeasing my father, whose superstitions about luck in sports often dictated where everyone had to sit and even whether certain people could stay in the room for the final minutes of a close game. I grew to adolescence on the threshold between my bedroom and the den.

When we moved, the new inhabitants let me keep the key. I wonder if they've changed the locks.

0 comments:

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

The Downstairs Bedroom at 421 Pine Road

In my 'Writing As a Spiritual Practice' spiritual formation group today, our prompt was to draw the floor plan of our childhood home and then write about one room. My drawing was awful and isn't worth reproducing, except maybe for the Christmas tree I drew in the living room. But here's what I wrote about the downstairs bedroom at 421 Pine Road.

I have a hard time recalling the exact layout of the house at 421 Pine Road. Some of the problem is that I am spatially challenged. Some of it is that the layout is similar to that of my parents' current house. There are a few differences. 421 Pine Road has three bedrooms upstairs and one downstairs while 2335 Richardson Drive has all four on the second floor. And 421 Pine Road has a spacious laundry room that was great for giving the dog a bath, stashing muddy boots, and being in time out. 2335 Richardson Drive just has a laundry closet by the garage, so all the laundry has to be corralled more efficiently.

I had the best room at 421 Pine Road. Well, I started upstairs, but by the time we got to three Howell children, I moved downstairs and took over the guest bedroom. It never stopped being the guest bedroom. I got used to relocating to the extra bed in Grace's room when company came.

My room was probably bigger than my parents', and I had my own bathroom, where one hermit crab after another lived for several years. The huge mirror that all but covered one wall always frightened me after an encounter with the "Bloody Mary" legend, where you say "Bloody Mary" 3 times and turn around. You're supposed to see Queen Mary's severed head in the mirror, and I swore I did. The layout of the bathroom allowed for even more terror in the form of my dad slipping a hand through the door to turn off the light while I was in the shower. He did this the day after we watched the movie Psycho, and I screamed bloody murder.

Back to my room. There were glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, painstakingly placed in the patterns of constellations among meticulously spaced out planets by my dad and me, who subscribed to an astronomy magazine for much of my childhood. The stars were more concentrated in the corner originally occupied by my single bed, and they felt far away when a double bed replaced it and switched sides of the room.

My walls were a hideous sea foam green, a color that I picked out and which my mother allowed me to use for some reason. But it was mostly covered by posters, anyway. Star Wars, sports heroes, later on musicians and actors. I seem to recall a calendar or two being dismantled so that pictures of horses and dolphins could serve as decorations. The furniture was solid wood, a whole bedroom set that now resides at 913 Burch Avenue here in Durham, but not in my upstairs bedroom because it is too dang heavy.

Even though I had my own room, I still longed for a secret space. I remember one night when my mom found me in my closet with the light on, reading far past my bedtime as I so often did. My first-floor bedroom was never wholly private. I was right next to the den, so on more than one occasion I emerged bleary-eyed to make my parents and their friends feel guilty for vocalizing their excitement over a late-night basketball game. As I got older, though, I began to join in, cheering on Duke and appeasing my father, whose superstitions about luck in sports often dictated where everyone had to sit and even whether certain people could stay in the room for the final minutes of a close game. I grew to adolescence on the threshold between my bedroom and the den.

When we moved, the new inhabitants let me keep the key. I wonder if they've changed the locks.

0 comments:

 

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