Houses

It’s almost impossible to remember the early houses and the things in them. In Easton, Pennsylvania at age three or so I have the memory of a cat, Bishop Yo-Yo, sitting in the window basking in the sunshine. There was impermanence in the early days…

The next house was in the country and was small but surrounded by fields and a quiet road. Violets grew nearby in the spring. The Tunkhannock house with my great aunt was the constant in my life – vacation place, residence, than vacation place for many years.

Furniture when I was in junior high school began to have a constancy also: the desk, pictures of both my great grandfathers, twin beds and tea service all came from my father’s parents when they died, and these things moved with us to Washington, into storage and out again as my parents moved from place to place following engineering jobs.

After marriage and our first apartment my husband and I bought a house. We have lived in it almost 38 years and the furniture: desk, pictures of great grandfathers, tea service and twin beds have come to me. My children will eventually keep or dispose of them.

For them there has been one house, for me, many.