Tale of the Powdered Floor

     The tale of the powdered floor has been stored away for a generation or more; my sisters and I have chuckled about it once or twice but we always suppose it has no significance to anyone else. And, of course, we are wrong.


     On this Sunday, the first in January to follow the holiday season, I am visiting my mother, who still lives in the large house where I spent my childhood. My granddaughter has accompanied me on this occasion to help carry boxes of Christmas decorations up the stairs to the second story and into the attic over the garage. She is seven years old and curious, having no notion of the nuances of an attic; therefore the girl who loves scary movies and delights in hide-n-seek, is anxious to do some exploring. But she doesn’t like the cobwebs or the chilly air, and when we are finished and the small door (which is just her size!) is firmly shut against the dimness, the dusty boxes and old luggage, she wants to investigate the rest of the upper story.
      I tell her the dormered bedroom to the left of the stairs belonged to my older brother, who had his own room as a result of being the only boy for so long. The access door to the attic is in this small room but usually hidden behind a chest of drawers. (Brother was playing with matches one day and accidentally burned a hole in his throw rug. He rolled up the rug and shoved it in the attic, hoping against really bad odds that no one would notice). Directly across the square landing from Brother’s, is another small dormered room where my grandmother slept. She was a widow who lived with us for many years and was a working woman before it was fashionable for a lady to have a career. (On more than one morning, Grandmother would call us to her room in a firm but slightly frantic manner, where she would be sitting on top of the bed with her feet drawn up off the floor. Our gerbils would escape their cage, find refuge in Grandmother’s closet, and a roundup would ensue).


     The last door off the landing opens to a large, light filled room that spans the back of the house and has four windows overlooking the backyard. To the right is a bathroom and a large walk-in closet (built at a time when walk-in closets weren’t the norm yet either). At the other end is also a closet, but one that had been the envy of all our small friends – a child could crawl under the hanging clothes and emerge in a closet that led into Brother’s room as well. It was, at various times, a hideout or a quick getaway. But best of all, with the lower shelf emptied of paraphernalia, and then outfitted with a desk lamp and a long extension cord, it became a secret clubhouse where we sat on the floor and crayoned in coloring books, drew pictures of horses or did homework.

     Granddaughter is politely interested in my narrative but the only story she really likes, of course, is the tale of the powdered floor. Now covered with plush carpeting, the original linoleum tile of the big bedroom was smooth enough but when sprinkled with a little talcum powder became a sort of skating rink, a place for limber skinny bodies to slip and slide on stockinged feet. Great fun until Grandmother, who was neither skinny nor limber, made a midnight visit to the bathroom and slipslided onto her backside.


     As Granddaughter and I tour this house of memories, I become nostalgic. Not for childhood innocence or teenage thrills but for some object or material thing. The big bedroom holds no trace of the little girls that played and worked, slept and scrapped through those years...no hairless teddy bear or baby dolls …no Nancy Drew book or box of carefully sharpened crayons...no saddle shoes or knee socks...no fountain pens or book bags piled on the small desk (now even the desk is gone). My eyes sweep over that bedroom that now assumes the role of a den, and observe the matching brocade love seats that face a small television, replacing the three twin beds of some indeterminate blond wood, and I note the venetian blinds blocking out the sunny view that was once framed by pairs of worn but frilly yellow cotton curtains.

     A silent sigh escapes me but Granddaughter notices. She grins and remarks that things must have been really different “back then”. I agree with her, musing that it wasn’t actually that long ago, and as I see the precocious twinkle in her eye and take her hand, I realize that this day will become a part of her own “back then”.

2008