A Beautiful Thing Happened on the Way to the SPAM Museum
My sister and I were two-hours into our road trip to visit the SPAM museum, a thing to do on a childless September day in Minnesota, when without much discussion we changed direction. It had been over 30 years, the address long forgotten, yet in no time we were right where we meant to be
As if looking in a photo album, the picture was unchanged. The small front yard, kindly lake in back; the dark green paint, and at the uppermost level, set like two steadfast, unblinking eyes were the original oval shaped windows. This was a brave and remarkable thing considering they had seen at least 80 Midwestern winters and a tornado or two.
We were invited in by a fine family. "Do you know us?" asked the darling girl. "No", I said "but I know this house, it was once my Grandmother's." To describe my Grandmother is like a foreigner searching for a word that has no equivalent English translation. She was the splash in the lake from which all ripples emanated. If you were included in her reach, you'd never be lost, even if you were the seventh of ten grandchildren. When she died, I never had that feeling again. So was she. Like that.
The gracious home-owners made apologies for the state of construction; saw-horses, tarps, tool boxes. Still, they counted our surprise visit as a great convenience. Explaining "We are trying to un-update the changes made by the previous owner." Adding, "If you can tell us what you remember from the original design that would clear-up some of our questions." Together we wandered through rooms, putting the pieces back together. Over here I pointed, were grand sliding oak doors, the site of endless entertainment; opening, closing and when still, framing our puppet shows. Here was once the kitchen and a door to a mysterious staircase that went nowhere; there were four steps, and then a wall. What remained of the staircase was used as a pantry. By the time I had lost my nickname, hiding on the other side of the door to surprise my grandmother had become passé, later when one of us would jump out to scare her she would merely say "Can you hand me the beets."
Upstairs was the long hallway, we raced to be first or at least not last, to the attic and the ten army cots waiting to be claimed as beds. Late comers got the eerie spot, near the coat rack.
I then tried to describe as best I could, "There were steps to the attic; painted yellow, with pretty sketches: boats, birds, windmills, I think. And I remember stenciled letters, perhaps words too." We turned the final corner. I gave a start, looked back at my sister to see if she saw it too. Untouched, except for a smattering of scuff marks, perhaps even made by me, were yellow stairs, pretty sketches and letters that formed words. The words meant something.
There is gravity when the binoculars in your brain dial into focus. Those synapses that for years have been glancing by each other finally meet head-on, one saying "I've heard so much about you." The other, "I'm glad we've finally met." That melding of thoughts and feelings brings a certain security. That's the gravity, it grounds you.
Ping. Shakespeare has meaning.
Ping. Coffee is good. Opera is grand.
Ping. The futility of coupons and debating politics among friends.
Ping. You don't raise children, they raise you.
I imagined my grandmother scrunched on those tiny steps, fighting the pinch of her girdle, which she was never without, and meticulously stenciling, letter-by-letter, word-by-word, her intent. Then she would have stood as I did now, to review her work and from the top down read.
When
You Get
Tired
Of Life
Below
Climb up
And
Forget
Your
Woe
What did we children, who clamored up and down those attic steps hundreds of times, never stopping to read, know of woe? But certainly our elders did: two World Wars, a son returned home with damaged sight and an amnesia for mirth; the neighbor boy who no longer jumped the hedge to walk my aunt to school, dead in Normandy, a daughter in-law at the liberation of Buchenwald threw away her camera hoping to never see those images again. But she could not dispose of the film that played a loop in her head.
Woe sometimes comes bearing your name. But you must climb-up and let it go or life and death is for naught. Vow never to lay the table for woe. Bring comfort and sanctuary. The trust to be funded for our children is not in a bank but in our actions.
I ventured to the top of the attic steps, to view what remained of our childhood compound. The army cots were gone, but there was a very familiar light. Two distinct columns of sun, shaped by the untouched oval windows illuminated as the artist intended. For the first time I realized those steadfast unblinking eyes on the exterior were not looking out, but shining in. Ping.
We said our good-byes: got in the car, switched on the GPS and continued on to a museum dedicated to SPAM. A thing to do on a childless September day in Minnesota.