The Wonder(ful) Years

We walked through the doorway of our Uncles new(old) home, and though I’d never been there before I was flooded with feelings of calm and familiarity. The first thing I noticed was the expansive(cozy) living room flanked in ivory paint. The warm(cool) cream colored functional furniture filled the room with life, and tucked behind the large sofa was a stairway creeping up all the way back towards my childhood.

First things first, I did not dare conquer the second flight without first exploring its foundation, although I found my eyes wandering up with curiosity and excitement. I began the inaugural dance, glance by glance from room to room. The kitchen seemed to cling on to the vestiges of its youth and filled my eyes with visions of its former inhabitants. What was once a stylish kitchen for its time, is now only a misunderstood skeleton of a former life. The cabinet knobs with inlaid paintings of tulips in colors so faint, and above the windows were carved wood borders so quaint I just had to appreciate. I basked in the vintage feel of the room, wondering why homes are not built this way any longer. Though its corners and walls were clearly many years of age, the home showed no real evidence of grit and seemed to have only absorbed the lives which passed through it.

And I felt it emanate through the walls, and breathed it in like a sponge.

To the second floor! My eyes floated above scampering feet to greet the next level. With soft cushion-y(firm) carpet nestled between my toes, my heart was aflutter. Which way? In love with the feeling of new(old)ness and not knowing where anything was, who’s room is this?

Discovery.

In the smallest bedroom with angled misshapen ceilings, shelves and drawers built directly into its walls and more nooks and crannies than an... I saw my younger self curled up into one of its crevices. Inventing games, poems, and stories about the real purpose of each slant of the roof and every minute detail of the space. But the real treasure was hidden inside one of the closets. As if an ordinary closet did not encase enough curiosity for a child’s imagination, a brave soul once ventured forth beyond the hanging garments, toward the darkness and revealed another door! A place all to yourself, any child’s(adult’s) dream.

With my eyes open wide like flashlights I examined the simple(complex) wooden door. Not too small and not very tall, just low enough that you’d have to crouch slightly to enter. No doubt the secret entrance to an ultra secret universe where I was a Princess with access to all the Barbie dolls and jaw breakers my heart could conjure. Or maybe it was the gateway to a magic fantasy land where rivers overflowed with chocolate milk and I floated along on a giant marshmallow flaunting a jellybean encrusted candy cane baton. I was all too enamored by the limitless possibility behind that small door and I was no longer looking at my young self in the corner, I became her. And it was a welcomed(welcomed) reunion.

For in that moment, I was catapulted back to the times when things were exactly what they seemed to be, untainted by the cunning of the world that surrounded. A time when every tile in the bathroom, and every pattern in the carpet held infinite prospect for my fibrillating imagination. The lines between the tiles became a road map to a secret treasure, and the squares on the fiery red carpet were islands floating atop scorching lava, so you’d better be careful not to slip between. When the mirror was much more than a reflecting glass, but the evil abode of an elusive Bloody Mary. The years when everything around me held and radiated awe.

I stood melting into the dreams of my youth while composing new ones of a childhood I might have had if I spent it within these walls. Thawed out by the warmth of this home I was brought back(returned) to the years of wonder.

So, remember.