Poinsettia and shadow

When I was in grad school, I took a course in twentieth century Spanish culture taught by the famous Spanish philosopher Jose Luis Aranguren. Possessed of that typical Spanish anarchism at a personal level that automatically rebels against dictates laid down against a person, Aranguren abhored the idea of tests and flatly refused to give them in his classes. Instead, we were to write one paper, which could be on any topic we chose that was even tangentially related to the course material.

Because I'd lived in Madrid several years earlier, the topic that tickled its way into my mind was this: life in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39.) Though there were no books to be found on this topic, searching for material did lead me to my graduate advisor, one of the most fortunate coincidences of my life. However, my first stop in looking for pertinent material was my originally assigned advisor, a professor from the south of Spain who always appeared perfectly put-together: carefully-tailored suit, sweater vest, tie and meticulously polished shoes. Never a hair out of place. He was probably between 45 and 50 at the time.

As we sat in his office, he admitted that he knew of no books on my chosen topic and urged me to go see his friend, another department professor who'd been in the thick of the government of the late Republic during the war. Then he paused, shifted in his chair and told me the following story.

He had been been a boy of six when the civil war began. His family lived in Granada, and on the opening day of the war, without warning the family awoke to tanks in the streets. His mother, sensing the direction that things would go, sent her six-year-old son out with instructions to go to the corner panaderia (bread store) and purchase whatever bread he could before the store closed, as she sensed it soon would. He recalled the fear he felt going out into the near-deserted street with the ominous tanks. But though he ran all the way to the panaderia, he arrived to find it already closed.

Knowing his family needed bread, he went another block, hoping to find some at another panaderia, but when he reached it, it too was closed. Though by this time he was very much afraid, he went on, perhaps several more blocks, to a third store and arrived just in time to buy the last loaf they had. Cradling it in his arms, he started quickly for home. He was proud at having finally found the bread his mother had sent him for. But as he hurried through an alley, he encountered a man coming toward him. The man snatched little Enrique's loaf of bread away.

"What did you do?" I asked.

"I bit him on the leg," the professor replied. He shrugged. He was only a small boy, incapable of fighting the grownup who had stolen his loaf. He went home empty-handed.

I've often thought of this incident, and the sharing of it, because it was a gift on several levels. While it clearly added to my understanding of the first-person reality of the war, it was also an unexpected glimpse into the interior of a formal, proper man. At the time I was roughly half his age, and the act of offering me his six-year-old self is one I will always appreciate... and remember with a smile. Beyond that, there's so much to be said for the richness of personal narratives in critical times. History books give you names and statistics, but not the living flesh and pounding blood of the people who lived through thosee events. Personal narratives, like those of Laura Ingalls Wilder or Anne Frank, make the events real to us.

And yet so many of these stories slip away, unrecorded. They become vague memories, and then faulty memories, and finally they disappear beneath the dust of time and matters of more urgent concern. This recounting is an effort to save this small gem from oblivion. The war that occasioned it has been fought, left behind, analyzed and set on the shelf. But the story of a six-year-old facing down a mean adult in a whitewashed alley brings that period immediately back to vivid life.

Rainbow trout at the fish hatchery beside Leaburg Lake

Hmm, the pic above seems appropriate because today, in the middle of an Oregon July, we had... a thunderstorm, the only real thunderstorm I've experienced in our three years here. And pouring rain. (Usually, once the heat hits, we have clear skies right through until mid-September.) Actually, the rain was welcome, because it means we won't have to water for a few days now. Tomorrow the clouds should begin to lift, as we await the arrival of Jenny's parents for a week-long vacation visit.

Looking back, it's hard to believe that Aaron, Jenny and the boys have been with us for nearly a year already. And aside from the sharp sadness of losing the baby a month after their arrival, the year has been filled with busyness, laughter, shared projects and progress. Part of the idea of a commitment to a shared lifestyle involved making our family more self-sufficient and shedding those manufactured/paid-for things we really don't need. And we've been succeeding at that. The fast food forays have been replaced by home-cooked meals (for which I can take no real credit; Jenny makes everything from scratch, even her own pita breads to hold the souvlakis that come off the grill); Aaron and Ben comprise a team that takes care of things such as gutter-cleaning; Paul and Ben have helped wean Cade from a steady diet of video games and have introduced him to both the unabridged dictionary and the joys of Hamlet; and I'm able to help occupy Con when he'd otherwise be getting in his mother's hair.

Jenny (who, incidentally, would make the ideal pioneer wife--thifty, hardworking, patient and resourceful), started seeds early to get our vegetable garden growing, when I probably would have thought about it but not followed through. For months she tended seeds and seedlings that seemed to grow slowly; now, suddenly, everything is exploding in the summer heat, today's gloom and rain storm excepted. We've had fresh (shelling) peas and a crop of beets already. Now green beans are ripening, we've gotten our first few squash and cucumbers, and onions are standing tall in the side plot... though that's partly because the soil there is so hard that instead of growing into the ground, they're rising to the surface. We have tomatoes setting fruit, and a spaghetti squash that grew from the size of an apricot to the sze of a football in about three days. Our little corn patch is taller than we are now, and we've been getting a steady supply of raspberries and now marionberries (a local blackberry variant) from the vines in the rear of the yard.

Self-suffiency doesn't come without effort, however. We hang our laundry outside now, but in contrast to the chore it always seemed when I had to do it as a teenager--and I hung a lot of clothes on the line--now it makes for a really nice break from whatever else I might be working on. We also plan on doing a lot of canning later in the summer. To date we've made quite the quantity of strawberry freezer jam, along with strawberry-rhubarb jam, stewed apricots, and cherry, blueberry and raspberry-marionberry pie fillings. Cade, a former jam-hater who was converted by my strawberry freezer jam several years ago, was right in the thick of the jam processing this time, prepping and smashing berries and mixing up the sugar/pectin mixture. He's also pretty good with a cherry stoner, but then who wouldn't want to play with this very specialized, low-tech gadget? It's incredibly cool. In the process, the boys are learning what it takes to prepare these fruit items (and we've picked most of them ourselves; luckily, Oregon is full of you-pick farms), and what real, ripe fruit tastes like.

I've also noticed that great bonus of the communal lifestyle kicking in: we do things together. Paul, Ben and Jenny have been working on prepping a pathway we're going to make behind the garage, Con helps me clean the bathrooms (well, partly because Con loves to do anything adults are doing), and sometimes I'll go into the house before dinner to find Paul helping Jenny roll up eggrolls or preparing the bits of dough for baturas (little fried breads from India that are OMG delicious.) At night, you'll find Ben and Cade in the kitchen doing the dishes and chatting.

I think about the separate, compartmentalized lives that so many people live these days simply because technology has made us, for the most part, no longer dependent on each other (we all sit on the bus with our own headphones on, absorbed in individual worlds) and am glad to be a part of this busy household where give-and-take and shared experiences--even if simple ones--offer a richness I wouldn't trade away for anything.

View from Tire Mountain, near Westfir, Oregon

Yesterday I went on my first mountain hike (as opposed to the hike you'd take, say, along a river or through a lowland forest) with Hiking Friend. I'm currently processing the pictures, but in the meantime here's a view I hope you'll find inspirational.

So. Bet you thought I'd given up on fic writing for good. Or that the inspiration had given up on me. It nearly has, any number of times, but in the end it always seems to come back and I keep plugging along. It's been over a year since I last posted new material for 'A Rat's Life', and actually, for much of that time I've been wrestling with the last piece I wrote, where Krycek ends up tasked with hauling Gibson Praise to a Consortium research facility. Regarding the original version (and to echo the sentiment of the unforgettable Amanda in 'Small Potatoes') 'What was I thinking???' Well, whatever it was, it was distinctly 'off' and I'm indebted to griva_x for pointing it out to me. ::sends virtual bouquets:: Rewriting the piece has felt, for the most part, like an exercise in wandering around blindfolded, but eventually (and very recently) things finally seemed to fall together, and I think this piece is finally on the right track.

So without further ado: (Click)

Hopefully the little bit of momentum I've gathered through this bit of writing will allow me to move ahead with the final section of the story. My fingers are crossed, at any rate.

Gratitude is good for the soul. It also means you've actually noticed the noteworthy things around you and haven't bypassed them, essentially blind. :-) In riding my bike to and from downtown recently, here are some things that have caught my eye and added to my day:


Outside the Federal Building, every one of the planters contains veggies!


Windows along the outside of the Fifth Street Market. Flower baskets are ubiquitous downtown.


A great corner in the city's Rose Garden


Geese feeding on the grass by the river


Old-fashioned purple roses along my street

Max, the newest addition to our family

Things have been busy around here. Highlights:

• Max! We struggled with a rescued cat for a while, but she turned out to be just too quirky and set in her ways to fit into the household. She terrorized our other two cats and over time showed no sign of letting up. Paul began calling her Chairman Mao because of her whiney, demanding meow and general demeanor. Finally, I contacted Cat Lady (friend of ChurchFriend), who'd said she'd take the cat if she didn't work out with us. [Paul: "Chairman Mao is being extradited."] Only a few minutes after arriving at Cat Lady's, she'd settled down and seemed at home in a way she never had with us, so I know she'll be in good hands. And being back to two cats again, we were in a position to find a kitten who could grow up with Cade. Max and Cade seem perfectly suited for each other.


• Fun with chicks: The new little girls are half-grown now and spend their days in the run with Grace and Nugget. However, Grace is definitely head of the pecking order, and the little girls have no interest in trying to breach the inner santum at night (the hen house) and suffer Grace's wrath in the process. Leaving them out one night in the hopes that we could place them surreptitiously inside the hen house once Grace and Nugget were asleep (this is recommended on many chicken-raising forums as a way of helping integrate flocks), Aaron stepped outside onto the patio around 9 p.m. to discover all six little girls trooping toward the garage. Chickens really want to be in their safe place at night, so when we didn't come for them, they managed to find a way out of the pen and headed in on their own. Now we just open the gate and herd them--sort of like sheep--to the garage, where we lift them into the big cardboard box where they spend the night.


• Bamboo trenching: We've been planning for months now to install bamboo along the fence for privacy along AngryNeighbor's side, but were not looking forward to digging the 60' long, 28-inch deep trench needed to put the bamboo barrier in to keep the stuff contained. (Looking for ideas on trenching online, I came across the Portland diary of a guy who'd had to hand-dig his trench after work, and it took him over six weeks!) Then about a week ago, Aaron had a great idea: use the rototiller to dig the length of the trench; remove the loose soil and make more passes, each one deepening the trench. It's worked wonderfully, and we're nearly ready to finally plant the bamboo.


• Backyard pics! I've taken a few pics around the yard so you can see what's happening now. Find them here.

Getting all your ducks... er, geese... in a row


View of the Willamette looking north from the Owosso bike bridge

And in the Delta Ponds:

(sung to the tune of 'The Twleve Days of Christmas'):
Three ducks a-sleeping, two turtles sunning...


... and a nutria munching on leaves. :-)

Boy, do I love having all this gorgeous scenery nearby, all the wildlife, and the bike path that makes seeing it possible.

Geese and goslings at the bend in the river the other day

The Long Tom River, barely a creek as it flows through Alderwood State Wayside

For a while now I've wanted to go out to Alderwood Wayside, not much more than a pull-off along rural Highway 36 northwest of Eugene. I first discovered it one fall when it had turned into a fairyland of yellow falling leaves, but it was such an enchanting spot then that I figured it must have some spring highlights, too. So yesterday, after a trip to a nursery outside town with Aaron, Jenny and the boys, I proposed going a little farther to take a look at Alderwood in the spring.

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The observation deck at Swallow Pond, West Eugene wetlands

Here's a little gem that Jenny and I stumbled onto in the process of taking a back road home from Lowe's the other day. Turning a corner, we saw a sign proclaiming 'Swallow Pond' and some distance beyond it, the beginnings of a narrow trail in the grass that led toward a small wooded area. We decided to investigate, followed the meandering gravel path a short distance through a stand of ash and cottonwood trees, and came out suddenly onto this little observation deck, where the path ended.

At first I was distinctly underwhelmed at the very small size of the pond, but as we looked around, we started to notice the swallows, who flew closer and then swooped low just above the surface of the water. Some had white underbellies while others showed a warm, rich apricot color as they darted by in the frenetic sort of way that swallows do.

Eventually I sat down to take in the larger scene. Far away, you could see a carpet of some kind of tiny white flowers. Closer, over the edge of the observation deck, two black socks lay in the grass. The area where the observation deck met the trail was bordered by wild roses, their tight buds showing a bit of deep pink, a promise of the flowers soon to come.

Looking more closely at the pond itself, I started to see air bubbles popping on the surface. There were wriggling polliwogs near the edge. And the reeds in the water were peace itself, moving lazily with the nudge of the breeze on the water's surface, back and forth, back and forth.


Reeds in the water

The more I opened myself to the scene around me, the more details I noticed, and this realization is perhaps the greatest thing I took away from the experience. So often we give things a cursory glance and move quickly on to the next item of obvious/overt interest. If I'd turned and left as soon as I came upon what appeared to be an anticlimactic scene, I would have missed the graceful flight of the birds, the quiet, the flow of nature and the varied signs of life, from tiny flowers no more than a sixteenth of an inch across, to ducks flying overhead, to the killdeer that landed in the sea of grass beyond the pond. I remember thinking, back in my college days, that blindness is often a matter of passing by something interesting without ever noticing it. Our workaday lives encourage this sort of myopia and we slip into unthinking routine, judging the worth of things by how closely they border the well-worn path we tread. Visiting Swallow Pond reminded me how much there is to be gained by taking off the blinders of familiarity, following some new trail and spending the time to let a new thing fully introduce itself to us.

Yellow iris growing in the Delta Ponds. The white stuff on the surface of the water is the fluff from cottonwood trees.

After dinner, Cade lobbied successfully for a bike ride and the four of us--Cade, me, Jenny, and Con in the bike trailer--headed toward the bike path along the river, which we hadn't explored since last fall. It proved to be a perfect time to go there. For whatever reason, the river is running quite high at the moment, which made for an impressive show. Our initial idea of a short ride soon turned into heading for the bike bridge so we could get a better look at the river's flow. From there, of course, we decided we just had to continue on to the other side and see what was going on at the ponds.

And we were glad we did. The yellow iris that appears to be just like the kind that would bloom in your garden (except that this stuff likes to sit in water) was blooming in great swathes of yellow, putting on a spectacular display. At first the water looked dirty, but I quickly realized that it was just the seasonal fluff from the cottonwood trees covering the surface of the water. We pulled out at the lookout (the bike path goes right out across one of the ponds--very cool), where I got the shot, below, of a group of nearly-submerged iris blooming happily away, and where we were rewarded with the sight of a small group of geese flying past low overhead. Later, in a farther pond, we spotted an absolutely enormous great blue heron on a log out in the water.


Close-up of the iris. It's hard to believe theyd survive with so much of the plant underwater.

At that point Jenny and Cade decided they wanted to continue around the river loop, so we rode north along the river's edge to the next bike bridge and crossed back over, eventually completing the five-mile loop that brought us home again just as the sun was setting. Now clouds have moved in, the wind has picked up and after our nightly ritual of bringing the little girls in for the night from their pen in the backyard, we're all indoors, cozy and hoping that the forecast of overnight showers will prove true.


Across the pond, a mound covered in lupins

One of several finger puppet monsters in Ben's birthday cake

Most people's kids don't come along this way, but this is my story. In each instance, I knew there was someone waiting to be added to our family before the physical fact of pregnancy. Annie started nudging both of us separately at just about the same time, before we'd even discussed having kids. Eventually we relented and got pregnant. Almost four years later, the process repeated itself: mental nudgings, and after a while we went ahead with the nuts and bolts of the process. In each case, we had a clear idea of who the child was. We knew Annie would be a girl, and that Aaron was a boy. But when Aaron was about two weeks old, I remember waking up, sitting up in bed one morning to the realization that there would be another child, another boy. (Though we definitely weren't about to start the process right away again, and waited a good, long while.)

Eventually, at about seven months pregnant with Steve, I suddenly found myself wondering what would happen if this child I was carrying wasn't in fact a boy. I'd been two-for-two so far, but who knew if it was just some sort of beginner's luck? So I decided I should have a girl's name ready, too, just in case. I started tossing about for girls' names, and when I finally hit on one that resonated with me, the little voice in the back of my head said immediately, and very clearly, "She's not this one; she's another of your children." So I knew about N over two years before she was born. Then, several weeks later, the mental lightbulb went on again: there would be two more boys after N; their names would be Paul and Ben, and Ben would be goofy.

And so it's proved; all the kids showed up exactly in the noted order, and Ben (he of the recent birthday cake above) has proved to be easy-going, amenable and--yes--distinctly goofy. He's clever, quick-witted, loves to augment his vocabulary by diving into our unabridged dictionary, and is a walking encyclopedia of twentieth century history. At age eight or nine he'd figured out how to hook up a spare hard drive to a dying computer to jumpstart it. He's pretty good at swordfighting. One of his favorite Christmas presents ever was a huge rock Paul and I found for him to use with his new sledge hammer; he ran right outside and started swinging, sending off sparks in the dark. When they were young, Paul and Ben would stay up until all hours making stop-action Lego movies (they were homeschooled, so had no definite bedtime) , and Ben figured out how to make the Lego cannons fire real projectiles. He can remember movie and TV dialog verbatim after having heard it only once. During the time he and Paul were playing a lot of Shadowbane, where you create characters with a first and last name, Ben's would bear monikers like Pretentious Fool or Unreasonable Demands.

In spite of the fact that he's the youngest and as such I enjoy hanging onto the child in him, Ben now takes the bus to work everyday (he works for his sister), but every afternoon I'm glad to see him come home and settle into his role as a quirky, observant, funny part of our sizeable household. As to the manner of his--and my other kids'--appearance, all I can say to questioners is that sometimes you're sitting in your living room and hear a knock on the door. You don't know who it is until you get up and open the door. But other times, you can be sitting there and look up just in time to see someone coming up the walkway, in which case you know who it is before the doorbell ever rings. Granted, this explanation lacks footing in scientific theory, but I've found, over time, that not everything in life is explained by the laws of physics.

Undergrowth, historic Dorris Ranch, Springfield, OR

How can you argue with artistry like the above? I'm always amazed, going out in the woods here in the spring, at the profusion of beautiful flowers and foliage patterns. Yesterday, one of Aaron's days off, we spent at home finally tackling the great garage cleanup project (and I'm so glad we did. It's awe-inspiring to step out into the garage now and have it so spacious and clean!) However, our good deed done, today we decided to reward ourselves with a short jaunt to the Dorris Ranch where we could enjoy the quiet trails and greenery.

It was overcast, and shortly after we'd arrived it started to sprinkle, but a little rain doesn't faze anyone here, and besides, the forest canopy kept us pretty dry. So we had a good time walking along and admiring the current wave of blooming things: larkspurs in blues and purples, the little white explosions of false Solomon's seal, buttercups, the local camas (whose root was a staple food for the native tribes who lived here long ago), bleeding hearts, checker lilies. Nature's gardener definitely deserves to be commended.

The Umpqua River, east of Roseburg (about 60 miles south of us)

Today Hiking Friend took me out for a daylong trek along the Umpqua River and up into the mountains. At the moment I'm ready to hit the sack, but under the cut are a few highlights of the day.

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Along the millrace near the University of Oregon

Today Jenny, Ben, the boys and I decided to go check out the Eugene millrace, a kind of canal that runs through a part of downtown near the U of O. I was shocked the first time I spotted it while driving down Hilyard Street. I went right home and pulled up Google Maps to see where it came from (it cuts off at the river, as it turns out. At a certain point it crosses the main road and runs about five blocks toward downtown.) It doesn't appear to be very deep--or particularly clean--but it certainly adds a picturesque touch as it flows past sororities, frat houses and student apartment buildings.

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A glimpse of the rural tone of our neighborhood: Barb's backyard

The weather forecast said it would be mostly cloudy today with rain likely in the afternoon, so I knew it was going to be a mowing day and I had my fingers crossed that I'd get it all done before any rain arrived. (I was also hoping the reports of rain would actually pan out.) But the morning dawned sunny, which gave me a chance to do other things in between mowing sections of the backyard. By noon the back lawn was done.

After lunch Cade asked if he could mow the front lawn. I was glad for the help and watched him while he did the job; then we pushed the mower down the street to my neighbor Barb's house and mowed the front lawn there (we'd done her back lawn two days ago; she's away visiting relatives.) Sure enough, haze and thin clouds moved in to cover the blue sky by early afternoon, but it was warm and a little humid so, back home again, I took the small chicks outside to spend some time in their outdoor pen while the weather was agreeable (this is a batch I started about six weeks ago.) When I finally had a chance to relax, I settled in the backyard in my zero-gravity chair and just enjoyed listening to the birds singing in the trees (there are lots now), looking up into the leafy canopy of the tulip poplar and generally enjoying the quiet and the outdoors. Though the sky didn't look like rain, the smell of approaching precipitation was in the air like a perfume.

After dinner, when Paul and I went out to bring in the chicks, the first fat, warm drops were beginning to fall. We brought the girls inside and I got them settled in their box. When I finished, the rain was coming down hard--almost like a winter rain, except that it was nearly 60 degrees. For hours the much needed rainfall has continued, sounding its music beyond the open windows, giving a close, cozy feel to the evening.

Section of backyard, with cottage

Spring is progressing here. The late tulips are blooming, including some that have mysteriously popped up in the yard for the first time in the nearly three years we've been here. We had this happen last year, too: after two springs of only-red tulips, several other colors appeared, I have no idea from where... though I'm certainly not complaining. And the trees are leafing out. We actually have shade from the tulip poplar now, and the apple tree in the back corner has formed a fragile canopy of light green. Jenny, who started many, many veggies from seed, has begun to set them out into garden beds wherever they happen to fit. And a neighbor was happy to receive the extra brussels sprouts seedlings we had, gifting us five beautiful just-picked leeks in exchange. We'll be having potato-leek soup for dinner tonight.

We've had very little rain (for here) since last fall--about 22 inches when we should have received over 40 by now. Generally at this point the back areas of the garden are thick with vibrant overgrowth, but this time, though there's greenery there, there's not nearly as much of it and it's notably less lush. The seasonal neighborhood swale, where many birds over-winter, generally fills up with the first October rains, but this time we were well into February before that shallow pond was anything other than a damp depression along the roadside. I worry about how our plants will fare through the summer, and it's definitely motivating me to look into options for rainwater catchment for next winter.

Jenny and the boys, who aren't used to seasons, are really enjoying the sequential parade of blooming things. We're past the peak of tulip season now; the flowering cherries are dusting sidewalks and roadways with pink petal confetti, and the newcomers to the seasonal stage, coming forward to take their bows, include the dogwoods, lilacs and rhododendrons. A good time to take a break from whatever human-centered 'necessities' we've been doing inside, breathe in deeply and look around at the fascinating, organic show nature is putting on outdoors.

Dogwood and wood hyacinths in the Owen Rose Garden


Bank where the river turns. No geese this time, just a scattering of ducks,
blooming trees and flowers in the lawn.


The river--with swooping swallows--as seen from the Greenway bike bridge

(What used to be) my grandmother's house, San Francisco, present day

When Thomas Wolfe wrote that "you can't go home again", he certainly wasn't anticipating Google maps' street view feature. Twice lately I've been drawn to explore places from my past that I haven't visited in person in 20-50 years. Make that 56 years, because last night I finally searched out the place we moved from when I was 3 1/2 years old. Our house has been replaced by a larger structure, but Mr. Blackford's, next door, still looked familiar, along with Mary Catherine's little bungalow beside it... and the house on the other side of us that once drew the fire department when the woman who lived there went shopping and accidentally left something cooking on the stove.

The place we moved to when we left that first house has been transformed into two residential lots, a fact I was already aware of. But I recognized the street trees, and the elementary school playground across the street (we had the fastest slide EVER, helped along by the repeated waxings we'd give it whenever we managed to beg sheets of waxed paper from our mothers. Go down sitting on your wax paper and you'd shoot a good five feet off the end of the slide.) From that location I wandered down two blocks, retracing a route I used to take on my bicycle as a kid, passing familiar and unfamiliar stucco houses, turned the corner eager to revisit the park and saw that the entrance was still as I'd remembered it, though a new playground has been added on one side. Two more blocks down I was at the old train station, historic enough to have been preserved. I remembered how far I'd ride on my bike when we lived there--miles and miles all over town--and the scent of the eucalyptus towering over the street behind the train tracks.

Each landmark seemed packed with memories... or better put, each landmark opened a pouch of memories that hadn't seen the light of conscious thought in years. Time is, after all, as much an anchor pin as location. Before or after, your home is someone else's, the yard is different, the vacant lot where you played becomes a brick building housing county offices. But your memories, seemingly as fragile as something blown from a child's bubble wand, remain to anchor you in that particular reality, and are surprisingly resilient.

A few weeks ago, in another virtual venture with Google maps, I set myself down on the curb in front of the building I'd lived in in Madrid 38 years ago. The house across the street, large for its time in the early '70s because it was owned by a prominent, wealthy family, looked very familiar, but all the buildings on our side of the street had been rebuilt as much bigger places. I then floated downtown to glance at Correos, the Puerta del Sol and the boardinghouse where a friend lived on the narrow Calle Espoz y Mina. Then I continued on to the ranch my parents owned for 26 years in Northern California wine country (the little red schoolhouse on the corner of the property is still there) and to my grandmother's house, shown above.

And oh, did the memories come then! I remember that narrow walkway on the lefthand side that led to the back door. Nana grew mint beside the back steps. Inside was the Bendix washing machine, an old front-loader that had me mesmerized watching soapy water and clothes slosh past the round window. There's the curved entry staircase I'd gone up so many times, and the little turret-topped planter to the left of it that looks into the dining room where happy and crowded holiday family gatherings were held. Pansies were always planted in the little planter outside the window, and the inside of the turret once housed a family of birds. There was the polished hardwood staircase in the center of the house that split and went in two directions: straight up to the bedrooms, and to the right to reach the living room above above the garage. At Christmas garlands and little bells would be fastened onto the railings, and my cousins and I, as little kids, spent many happy hours bumping down the staircases as if they were slides.

My uncle built the house for my grandparents after WWII, and I remember someone once saying that Grandma and Grandpa were worried at the time about whether they'd be able to afford the mortgage payments. Now I can see that it's definitely a custom house, and that even the double garage would have seemed upscale in 1948. Though they only lived in the house twelve years, until my grandfather died, it was the first and only 'grandma's house' I'd ever known, and always a happy destination. If I were standing in front of it in person, I'd be tempted to ring the doorbell and tell the current owners a little about the house's history... though I'd probably come across as some weirdo appearing out of nowhere to alter their view of their private surroundings. Maybe they wouldn't want that.

Oh, well, it was a virtual journey anyway. Though the impressions it evoked were vividly real, if only to me.