Fall in the Midwest. Miles and miles of flat fields interrupted by fences, occasional creeks, colorful puffs of woodland, and corn ready for harvest. Cattle grazing. Clouds billowing. Leaves fluttering, changing colors and letting go, drifting through the door of Autumn breezes into another season.
Peeking through doorways into yesterday is such good therapy for a melancholy. As sisters, the three of us have embarked on journeys into our past these days of longer autumn nights and lingering shadows. We visited our aunt, recently turned ninety-nine, now back home in the house where she reared her family, where our daddy grew up, where our grandparents farmed the land. She sits in the chair most days positioned where she can watch the passing trains that have echoed through decades cutting across fields carrying coal, crude oil and cattle. The trains are no longer pulling a caboose. We lament the absence of the familiar salute from the railway worker whose job it was to signal the crossing had been passed and to dutifully wave to children standing by. Once upon a time, this frail, diminished lady was the matriarch of the household, the queen mother, the Proverbs 31 woman who kept it all going. Could she have guessed that one day she would be sequestered in a makeshift bedroom in the old dining room, totally unaware of what was happening in the kitchen, the canning cellar, the milking parlor or garden or hen house or attic or corn crib or anywhere else that had formerly been her domain? Do we ever consider that the world might keep turning on its axis in those years of our lives when we twirl sticks with a myriad of spinning plates?
Far from despondent, although perhaps a little wistful, our darling auntie rests nestled into the heart of the home. The working farm keeps working. The family members come and go. The days of our lives tick mercilessly on. Others now perform for her the acts of kindness she has been doling out for years. We laugh. We remember. We say good bye. We pause once more to capture the visual of this dear lady who rests content as we hurry off to life beyond.
How to unlock the mysteries of the past when there is no one else to ask? How to look through keyholes or beyond the gate or into windows that might give clues about questions that niggle in our heads? The compass turns and we venture out another day in another direction. Another farm community. Another small town. Here we identify the building where our daddy ran a drugstore and courted our mother, who worked the soda fountain. We locate the church where they were married. We sisters visited this community often during growing-up years when our family came to visit our mother's aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. Connecting GPS signals with remembrances, we discover the cluster of buildings that marked the homestead, although sadly, the house itself is gone. The out-buildings, now boarded and securely locked, only hint at busy days in the barnyard leaving few keys to the past. Yet, unmistakenly there had been life and meaningful work and there had clearly come a day when the work was done and the barns were boarded up.
Around another bend, we find the farm where most of our childhood memories emergd. There is the well where the milk cans were kept for cooling after our uncle would lift them (and us) into the cart and let us ride from the barn. In bygone days while we watched the milking, we offered grain to the cows and giggled at their rough tongues receiving the offering from our shy, city-slicker hands. Cats drank fresh, warm milk from saucers. We spy the side porch where we stood to watch the boy-cousins and uncles go off, guns over their shoulders, to hunt on Thanksgiving Day. With noses pressed against frosty windowpanes, it seemed that magically the first snow of the season began to fall that same day each year as we awaited their return. The front porch, still intact, is where we dressed those poor baby bunnies and kittens in doll clothes, playing house for endless hours while our mothers plucked chickens, made jams, and canned vegetables from the garden. We wore calico skirts sewn from feed sacks. We helped gather eggs. The adults drank Sanka. The odor of fuel oil used to heat the house gave mother a headache. We sat on Uncle Freddy's lap playing with the hooks of his bib overalls. He shared peanuts from a little tin dish. The black phone hung on the wall. One of the steps leading upstairs lifted to reveal a storage niche. Additions here and there left uneven passage between rooms where layer upon layer of sparkling linoleum creaked and cracked with daily wear. The curtain covering the corner pantry made it easy to steal inside to snitch snicker-doodles or homemade donuts. Shared memories ricochet between us.
The barn door is stuck open, permanently it seems. Vines creep and crawl and cover the unpleasantries of rusting machinery and rotting wood. Maybe, there are new litters of kittens making themselves quite at home. Maybe, like the children of Narnia, we can keep slipping "through the wardrobe" revisiting memories and reliving days beyond the land of here and now. Maybe, the hinges of the door connecting past and present stay well-oiled with use.
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