SUSAN CHARRON - GUEST BLOGGER

The following was written by my daughter, Susan.


Window Memories


I start waking the kids up around Ellmitch. And, yes Grandmama, I do know that Ellmitch came from the word Mitchell. One mile or so is usually enough time for them to wake up to walk in the house where they will sleep by the same window I slept by for years. Everyone plops down in the living room to talk, even if we don’t get there until late at night. Eventually, one by one, everyone makes their way to their sleeping spot. Sometimes I get my old room, but more often than not it is the kids. That is fine with me since I am usually in another room alone and get to sleep until my eyes open on their own.

My kids sleep in a bed that is high off the floor and in a room where almost everything remains the same. The bedspread is the same except for the times it is replaced by an old quilt. Old quilts feel better any day of the week though. The carpet is the same and even the wallpaper. Most of the sounds are the same except for the whistling of the flue over the fireplace. A vintage plaque hanging from a little chain bearing the picture of a girl covers the hole and it whistles and flutters when the wind blows. The curtains are the same and they cover the same windows I looked out of for most of my life.

I can’t count the number of times I pulled the curtain back to look out the window. I would imagine the curtain closest to my bedroom door must have a worn place in it where I held the curtain to lift it away from the window so I could see what was outside. Some of my window memories are happy and some are the ones that I want to forget but can’t because they have made me who I am.

Every night I would pull the curtain back before I went to sleep. The unfailing streetlight was always there and I would see the occasional cat walk across the street, probably wanting in to sleep at the feet of someone in our house. I once looked out the window when my sleep was interrupted by a phone call. I watched a car back out of the driveway to speed away to my grandfather who had suffered a heart attack. I had listened to part of the call to tell us he was sick but hung up and only remember pulling the curtain back to watch the car leave. After that I was never able to look out the window to see if Graggy was there to let me practice driving on the roads of our little town.

Over the years, the curtain was held back mostly to watch family members come and go. Grandmama bringing green beans and fried corn from her garden and extended family coming for Christmas and Thanksgiving. I would watch to see if mom was coming because I just liked it better when mom was home. I watched my brother pull in the drive. He was always on time, of course. He was probably never late coming home and he always parked in the same spot. I watched him drive the most awesome car in the driveway. He liked it so much that he wouldn’t let me drive it, even around the block. And I would watch for daddy walking down the street after work. Not many dads walk to and from work but for most of my life daddy was up before the sun, walking up the street in the dark. Not often, but once in a while, I would hear the door close and watch him walk up the street until I lost sight of him behind the leaves of a tree. I mostly just watched for him to come home though. It wasn’t long after he got home that we were all in the house together.

I would pull the curtain back to see if my date was pulling in the driveway. Mostly they were on time but sometimes I would pull that curtain back every thirty seconds until they arrived. For what seemed like forever I would pull the curtain back to see if my ride to school was waiting for me. Sometimes it was the Freer’s car sitting in the drive with all four family members waiting for me to jump in. There were the times I rode with Carrie. I remember seeing her mom pulling in the drive and I hurriedly carried my curling iron with me because I thought it may stay hot long enough for me to finish those last two straight pieces of hair. It didn’t.

Today I look out the same window from behind the same curtain when I sleep there. Only now I notice what my children are doing outside and different people come and go. The curtain stays the same but I look through glass that is broken in one corner and is taped together. Sometimes if the wind blows hard, I can feel a little draft through the window. Maybe those are my window memories blowing in to remind me.