Floating Ghost
Memories of my childhood have emerged over the past few days, but, more accurately stated, feelings associated with memories have surfaced.
I asked for it when shaking my fist at the heavens and calling upon the spirit of the universe to unlock all that lay in shadow and denied in my being. Immediately, a blazing star shot across the darkened expanse and the cosmic lamp released the genie.
I am not a math whiz but the following equation doesn’t add up:
2 (adults) + 4 (children) + 900 sq. ft. / 5 rooms ( 2 bedrooms with one bedroom delegated to the parents.)
My memory is extremely sketchy but I don’t recall seeing 4 beds.
As I lie in present in our king size bed looking at the stars through the skylight, I wonder what that boy wanted back then. I do not recall a bureau, or desk. He needed a room of his own because he had three sisters.
My father, likely hounded by my mother, cut a hole in the bedroom wall into the attic above the living room. The joists were covered and the room insulated and to that extent, the remodeling was complete.
I chose to sleep at the far end, behind a chimney next to a window. The unfinished room didn’t consciously bother me, what bothered me was having to enter the girl’s room to get to mine. Other kids had normal looking rooms accessed from a hallway, did I wonder, why not me?
I lay in the present and allow myself to sense those feelings then and like the warming of our planet’s poles, chunks of memory break free and float back to my conscious mind.
