A mild winter day takes us to the attic

from Google images 

 

 

                From six to 58 degrees—in just a handful of days. From an icy attic to one comfortable to work in, to re-store Christmas decorations.

                When the weather read single digits, I allowed the 3 feral cats to come inside with the 3 tame ones. Three of them chose to go to the attic. One of them stayed for over a month—food, water and a litter box provided. Finally, the cat came back, uh, down, and spent days and nights hidden in one corner or another of the front rooms. Then, after two weeks, it finally arched its black, longhaired tail and walked out the front door where it's been ever since.

                Children that I know (including me) have always been fascinated by the attic. At the last, Mom refused each request for permission to go there. But I remember the pleasure of going up Grandma Flossie’s back stairs.

                When I was a child, our attic was not safe for anyone but Dad. Two-by-fours (insulation I don’t remember) and a few one-by sixes laid over them comprised the flooring.

An ancient typewriter sat on that floor that somehow I managed to get to. Hmmm. A budding writer at that age, do you suppose? We’ve heard stories about Dad tossing an old wall-hung telephone out the attic window. For the longest time, a Victrola graced one corner.

At some point, Dad floored the entire place and sheet-rocked the sides and ceiling. Probably when we needed more bedroom space. But he assured us until his dying days that a bathroom could NOT be built into the attic. And, he added, he was a carpenter and knew what he was talking about. God rest his soul.

For many family members, using the attic for storage was a given, whether you lived here or not. A port-a-crib belonged to a sister whose boys are now in their forties. An over-sized runner-up trophy from a Miss Benton pageant so long ago the two sisters (60-somethings) who had entered could not remember to whom it belonged.

Dressers and books go back four generations––some from my maternal grandmother’s, some from who-knows-where. Cardboard boxes are full of Mom’s college papers and projects. During the 1960s, she attended ASTC (UCA) on Saturdays and in summers while she taught first grade on an emergency certificate. This, after her eight children were in school. God rest HER soul.

Kid Billy and I hauled down a coiled wire bed spring that went to ABC Salvage. A metal bed frame and mattress—now quilt-covered—lean against a wall.

Two ironing boards—mine and Mom’s—are set up. One is for stacking stuff on and the other to use as intended.

Old copies of Better Homes and Gardens and Look are worth a bit online, some issues more than others, of course.

In the few weeks of spring and fall, the attic makes a good writing space. Windows on the north and west provide plenty of light during the day.

 Here is an attic poem written several years ago that won two first and two second places when it was new. It also scored a 4HM in NFSPS’s contest, which is a feather in my cap, so to speak.

 

 

THE ATTIC – (a Foster Sonnet)

 

 “With restlessness of childhood, underscored

by weeks of ice and snow, no school demands,

 I beg for Grandma’s leave to spend some time

 beyond the mystifying door. “We climb

the narrow, testy stairs where treasures’ hoard,

 in paint-peeled chests and mothballed trunks, is stored.

When eyes adjust to garret’s gray, on hands

and knees we snake across the hinterlands,

 dirt daubers’ buzz in dormered warmth no threat,

 spy shoeboxed photographs./“In flannelette,

 I sit on Grandma’s lap. Her stories spill

like water from the back porch pump until

 the clump of boots in lower hall cuts short

 our winter trip to attic’s warm resort."  

--PL, c 2014, lovepat press