Nostalgia

I grew up in a sunlit apartment. The radiator clanked and clicked. The landlord turned the heat off at night, so Momma would stuff blankets under the doors and chinks in the windows to keep the heat in.

Before I was born, Momma painted my nursery walls with scenes from a swamp. A great friendly green frog looked at me in my crib. Plants grew haphazardly around the windows. Everything was green and yellow, kind and warm.

When I was four, bats came in to my room one summer night. Before I cried out for Momma to shut the windows, I watched the bats drift back and forth over my head, fluttering my dreams away, frittering them to the night sky. And then, I cried out, and Momma came in her long nightgown, chasing the bats out and crooning to calm me.

My father smoked a pipe in a great chair with wings. He read the paper and smiled at me playing on the floor. I remember him being so grave, but he was only 31 at the time. At night, he would give me horsey rides. One time, he stayed home from work with me while I was sick. He tried to draw pictures for me, and talked to me, and we had a nice time eating soup and napping. As we aged, Daddy grew away from me. But in that sunlit apartment on Case Street in Evanston, I was his little monkey.

Momma and Daddy played records all the time. Daddy would tap his toe and strum along on his guitar, while Momma would sing in her faint soprano voice, and I would sit in the sun breaking through the window, and stay warm, and lie on my little stomach.

There were walks in the park, and swing sets, and the beach on Lake Michigan. Friends of all walks came to visit. Laughter and wine and soft blankets. These memories, I remember. But mostly, I remember the sun wandering through that window-filled apartment, warming the crooks and nannies, warming my little body so I grew just as the murals in my bedroom, spreading up to life.