My Big Blue House

I don't remember much about preschool or kindergarten, but I do remember our big blue house. It was a magical house, especially to a 5 year old.

I was dropped off after school each day and I would go exploring one thing or another in my big blue house. I remember it had a sandbox of sorts but I can't figure out why I needed to be lifted up to get inside it as it was on legs like the kitchen table. I remember asking my grandma, who lived with us, to pick me up so I could get inside it and play for hours at a time.

Honestly, while I remember my grandma living here with us, I have few memories of my sister Carolyn or even my mom and stepfather being there at all. I see visions of hours spent together with my wonderful grandma who loved to spoil me rotten. I was her very first grandchild, and I proudly hold that title even after she passed away.

We would do crafts on this table that was in an interim room between the kitchen and the door to go outside. I thought it was so neat that this table or countertop was built right into the wall, and it even had some drawers underneath to keep craft supplies and little trinkets in. I guess reflecting on that I would now in my adult 'wonderlessness', call that a desk. But through my young eyes, it was just the neatest space, though not my favorite spot in the big blue house.

Where I would spend most of my time was in a magical realm, a place only children could get to, where everything was just my size. In fact in my very own room, there was a tiny doorway, about half the size of the normal door. Even I had to duck my head a bit as I entered. Inside was a room with a little table and chairs and a small couch that folded out for me to sleep on during those special nights I was allowed. I remember the couch had peach colored flowers popping up all over it among the white tangled leaves and vines that rested on the pale blue fabric. Then it was new, but it pops up again, over and over in my memories from childhood, each time just a little dirtier, a little more faded.

I wish I knew where the big blue house was. Though I don't think I would want to visit it again, for in my memories, through my young eyes, it was such a magical house, and a magical time with my grandma taking care of me. But as an adult, now, seeing it again would somehow dim the magic. Someday though, I hope my own daughter can find her own magic hidden among our home, maybe she too will have a room one day that has its own little doorway to a magical place, just like mine once did.

This is the 2nd in a 15 week series I am doing to record my youth with other woman. Check it out at