Kate's House

I realized a few months ago that every time I read a book, I imagine the setting describe in the story as the farmhouse in which my friend Kate was raised. I spent almost every weekend and every summer there since I was three years old.

The house was large and cozy and sat on acres of woods and wildflower fields. It was filled with Americana decor, racks hung on the wall with silver spoons from around the world and it was dimly lit to perfection. The pool out back got used more than the bathtub inside, and the rock garden adjacent to it was a testament to their quirky intelligence. The playhouse in the yard is where my imagination (and ability to kill spiders) developed. The trampoline beside the in-ground satellite dish was so flexible your feet almost touched the ground, and when it raised you in the air you thought you would fly away. The rooms upstairs, were spacious and filled with books. I never stayed in the immaculate guest room, I suppose because I wasn't a guest. I slept in a trundle bed that tucked neatly under Kate's, always with clean sheets and at the ready. The bathroom had a piece of art made of stone with a Native American woman dancing. It hung next to some dried chili peppers. A beaded flyswatter hung in her parents room and I spent much of my time at her house trying to figure out what the hell it was. The carpet throughout the house was speckled, shaggy and soft, and made for the perfect place to play cards. The banister was a bit shaky and the doorbell chime was oddly formal. For all the many, many years I came and went, I only sat foot in the garage on a single occasion. And it scared me. The den was the most interesting room in the house with it's oversized desk, antique accounting machine, built-in bookshelves and wood-burning stove. The bathroom off the den was tiny with a plastic accordion door that frequently stuck, but I always preferred using that one because the walls were papered with a black and white pattern of antique toilets. I liked counting the number of times my favorite one (with the chain flush) repeated in front of me. The sunroom, however, is where the house came alive. It was the sunroom door that everyone used to enter and leave the house. Muddy boots and grass stained sneakers were piled high by the door. The tv was always on, the furniture was wooden and creaky. There was a large cedar chest filled with beach towels and a fridge full of every beverage imaginable. The indoor/outdoor carpet was usually damp from pool soaked feet and I felt nothing but happiness every time I arrived and my fingers curled around the handle of the torn screen door.

I don't glorify my childhood. There were unhappy moments too. But on the whole, it happened to be pastoral, beautiful and lasting. I found the perfect friend at the age of three. And she came with a pool.

So now, any book I read is automatically set in Kate's house. Even if it's set in a pre-war apartment in New York. Or an English cottage in the 1700s. The married couple in a book share a bed in Kate's Grandmother's room. The kid searching around New York City comes home to his brownstone and drops his backpack on the old desk just inside Kate's front door. A woman learns of her cancer diagnosis in the kitchen as she sits on the step latter turned desk chair just left of the beat up stove. Perhaps I do that because her house is burned into my spacial memory so well that I can imagine it, my mind can easily accept it, so I can concentrate on other aspects of the story.

Or maybe it's just that after all these years I'm still struggling to imagine myself anyplace else.