Going Growing Gazing Up

Like many other Minnesotans, I measure distance by time. I go up north. I spent as much of my summertime in a lake as on land. So I am not particularly unique when I tell you that my grandparents decided to plot their dream home four hours north on Jack the Horse Lake, and that my family treats their house as a cabin. Nona and Noni – Italian for grandma and grandpa – decided to take a page out of Thoreau’s book and live in the middle of nowhere. After bothering their various children for the funds, they finally broke ground on what would become my heaven - and my hell.

I will be taking you on a tour on their home. But more than that, it is a journey through my own experiences. I have memories associated with every brick and ounce of mortar of it, a piece of my own puzzle hidden underneath flowery cushions and sacks of flour. By taking a magnifying glass to every inch of the place, maybe I can find something I’ve been missing from myself.

First, the world’s steepest driveway. Go up in a vehicle anything other than four wheel drive and you will not make it to the top. No chance. The angle of elevation is barely legal, and has a treacherous curve at the bottom, making it impossible to gain enough momentum. I remember my aunt once attempting the mission with me in the car. I heard my first cuss words that day. However, add half a foot of snow, and we had the perfect sledding slope. With that turn at the bottom, we always took quite the spill. Our sleds would topple over the snow bank and everyone would wait to see who surfaced triumphantly.

The Kitchen is Nona’s domain, and there’s always something on the stove. It’s her dream kitchen, complete with two ovens, a square center island, kitchenware she handpicked from William-Sonoma catalogs and two many salt and pepper shakers to count. There’s always a basket of fresh fruit, always two kinds of milk in the fridge, and always bread in the bread drawer. The napkin dispenser was handmade by a relative, the double sink is often full of vegetable peels, and there is a special drawer in the cupboard with jars of candy – their private candy shop. The desk hutch is a collage of bills and notes and magazine recipes. The two stools must be pushed in at all times. The light fixtures dim to create serenity over the dinner table. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, no one ever goes hungry. This is the place, year after year, that I watch Thanksgiving dinner magically appear out of copper pots and pans. This is the place where I eat noodles-wrapped-in-bacon (you heard me), eat grapes until my stomach could burst, and bake peanut butter cookies out of a classic Betty Crocker Cookie book that I’ve claimed as my inheritance. Out of this kitchen wafts the smell of family and tradition and love, and so it is one of my favorite places in the world.

The stairs that lead up are my desks. Let me explain. Each step is carpeted, and the entire staircase is suspended in midair, with no walls on either side, just a railing. There are no backboards to each step, just space underneath. In between each step, there is just enough space for me to slide my legs through so the step I am sitting on becomes my seat, and the step above becomes my desk. This is my favorite “desk”. Hidden by the railings, I can observe everyone moving around me, the birds on the other side of the picture windows, the deer grazing in the front lawn, but the only parts of me the world can see are my dangling legs. I spent hours on these desks, writing stories, jotting down my observations, drawing pictures, and painting with watercolors even. This is where I do my best thinking.

The loft has two beds, two desks, a bedside table, and a hundred office depot boxes full of files. This is where my brother and I sleep. We’ve gotten tall enough where we hit our heads on the ceiling when we sit up too quickly in the morning. The carpet is the color in between grass and emerald velvet, and probably is captor to dozens of small toy pieces accumulated over the years. The antique stuffed animals are familiar after so many visits. The giant goose puppet was my favorite because it has a stick that you can use to turn its head. We performed puppet shows to the audience below on multiple occasions. The funniest part of those plays was when the beanie babies kamikaze-dived over the railing to their beanie-deaths below. For some reason, it was just hilarious.

The three-season porch has many purposes, but I use it to watch the birds. The house finches and hummingbirds flit around their birdseed buffets, with homemade and specialized feeders lining up and down the long deck. The squirrels stuff their faces when they can get away with it, but those and the Blue Jays are not welcome at these bird feeders. We clap our hands until they speed away to make room for the more amicable birds. Those are the ones we like. I remember making suet with Nona: lard and peanut butter and birdseed. I remember sipping lemonade or iced tea and watching the sun go from a sliver of neon orange to nothing but the remnants of light. I remember running out in my bare feet so I could feel winter underneath my toes.

The main room in the basement is the room where it happened. The carpet is rough and tan. It is three degrees colder than the rest of the house. There is a ceiling fan where a wooden loon with propellers for wings hangs suspended from fishing line. I watched it twirl around and around and it didn’t stop. I didn’t close my eyes.