A Sense of Place

I’m taking this writing workshop, which is totally dope, but requiring me to read a lot and write a lot, and the blog is being elbowed out, I’m afraid. For the next five Thursdays, at least. I’m having trouble getting to everything, including, you know, my job and grocery shopping. So here’s a piece of homework I did for the class, not the usual stuff I write here, but whatever. We had to “create a sense of place”, that is, think back on a place we used to live and develop it for the reader, using the good ol’ five senses. And it’s a story, of sorts, not one specific visit to my old homestead in Boone but an amalgam.

Anyway.

It’s dark. It’s always dark with the Roman shades down. Mom made them when I was, what?, seven? Designed to be reversible, but by the time I thought about reversing them, the other side was sun-bleached and splotchy. So I just kept the maroon side in. Between them and the dark bead board walls and ceiling, and the navy blue carpet, it can stay dark in here all day in the middle of July.

But it’s not July. It’s December. And I’m the first of the clan back at the old homestead for Christmas. It’s just me (the baby) and Dad.

The fringe of the canopy flutters. The furnace has kicked on again and it’s blowing up through the register at the foot of the bed. In an old house with old insulation, my room and the little bathroom are the only two rooms you can count on being warm. I curl the covers up and burrow down for another minute.

I listen for it, and there it is: the gurgle of Cove Creek. It rained yesterday, a lot. Not so much as after Bruce’s wedding when it spilled over Henson’s Branch Road, and we watched that drowned calf rush by. It didn’t occur to me to think about the farmer’s loss (I was picturing the grieving mother cow) until someone mentioned the word ‘livestock’.

Yesterday’s deluge was enough to double the creek’s usual depth to maybe two feet, probably cutting to half its size the tiny spit of land that juts out into it from the other bank—Dad always called it Nelson’s Peninsula, after Gary Nelson, the archetypal asshole neighbor across the way, a man so scary my brother and I would pick up our Big Wheels and tiptoe them past his stone lair.

The door to my bedroom is ajar—never has closed completely, only to about five inches from flush with the jam, where it screeches—wood on wood—to a halt. I hear Dad shuffling around in the kitchen, doing his damnedest to break another coffee pot I’m sure. That man has a talent.

The bed creaks as I roll off it. It’s a long way to the floor, probably three feet. When I was little, I’d take a running leap and fling myself onto the mattress, pulling my legs up on the double to make sure the monsters under my bed didn’t grab my feet mid-vault.

I pull up the covers in a half-assed attempt at making my bed. I never liked making my bed, though I enjoyed having made it. Sliding into tight sheets; calling out, “Daddyyyyyyyyyy, come tuck me iiiiiiiiiiiinnnnn.” ‘In’ was two sung notes, higher then lower. Dad would come count my covers (sheet, wool blanket, wool blanket, bedspread), kiss me on the forehead, and turn off my light. Until one August after spending the summer at Grandma’s, maybe I was ten, I don’t know. I hurled myself onto the bed, scooted under the covers, and opened my mouth to sing out. And it occurred to me, maybe not. That was the end of Dad tucking me in.

Now I walk into the kitchen, scrubbing at my eyes with the heels of my hands to adjust to that room’s brightness, and yes, of course, Dad’s there in his bathrobe, drinking coffee—he hasn’t yet misplaced today’s mug. He looks pensive as always, shuffling papers on the kitchen table, scribbling with a mostly dry magic marker, surely bought 25 years ago. (How many years will it take him to deplete the remaining art supplies of my childhood?)

The linoleum feels rubbery on my feet, but already a coating of breadcrumbs and dust is attaching itself to the soles. Dad says he sweeps. He says that. He also says he wipes down the counters. “With what? A pork chop?” my brother once asked.

This most recent coffee maker (Dad hasn’t killed it yet! Yay!) huffs like an awakening dragon. The pot is almost brewed, thank goodness. Dad looks up from his “work” (probably a mixture of manuscript notes, loose calendar pages, and articles cut out of the Mountain Times) and sees me. “Hiya, pet,” he says. “Fresh pot of coffee there. Can I make you some oatmeal?” There’s a hopeful note in his voice.

Yes, Dad. I’m 37, but yes. You can make me some oatmeal.