Sometimes we get to
experience a familiar moment in time long after it became a distant
memory. Such was the case when we
enjoyed a mini holiday in Natchitoches, Louisiana.
We’d
booked a room at the Queen Anne, a Victorian style bed and breakfast located in
the historic district close to the river, making sure it was on the first floor
to avoid having to extend ourselves by going up and down stairs. The furnishings were appropriate for the
elegance extended in the entryway and formal parlor area. Our bedroom was adjacent to the parlor,
having been separated with a pair of pocket doors that carefully but definitively
divided the parlor’s common area from our bedroom.
Sleeping
in a bed you’re not familiar with is challenging, not that this one was uncomfortable;
but it wasn’t in my bedroom at home. The
road trip was about four hours, and relaxing was more than a suggestion, it was
necessary. Taking in as much of the surroundings
was perhaps the reason for picking this particular bed and breakfast, compared
with staying at a premium hotel. Each
item had been carefully placed to enhance our experience to include the bookcase
on one wall that went floor to ceiling with an ancient set of encyclopedias
going back to the nineteen thirties, worn and decidedly outdated.
After
climbing into bed and accepting the invitation to drift off, the lights having
been turned off, we noticed the outdoor lighting remained on, a soft glow from
the outside coming past the wooden Venetian Blinds that covered the
windows. Sleep took over easily and
remained with me for several hours.
I woke up while
it was still the middle of the night.
The soft light continued easing its way into our bedroom area past the
blinds. It was then that I found myself
transported in time, back to when I was visiting my grandparents’ apartment in
Queens, New York, as part of my tenth birthday celebration.
I should explain,
I’d gotten to travel into the city via the Long Island Railroad, all by myself,
a treat and an adventure unto itself.
Upon arriving at Grand Central Station my grandparents were waiting, and
we took the 7 Line subway across town to where their apartment was located near
the Bliss Street station. For a ten-year-old
boy every part of the trip was being taken in, sounds, smells and every feeling
being recorded moment by moment.
They’d turned
a small sofa into a temporary bed in what must have been a bedroom space; but
it was for general use since it was just the two of them. Their apartment was technically on the first
floor; but in actuality it was one flight of stairs up from ground floor. I was supposed to get some sleep in
preparation for a day in the city with my grandparents; but taking in all the
unfamiliar sights and sounds made it nearly impossible to put my head down on
the pillow.
Instead, I
found myself looking out the window that overlooked a courtyard, a courtyard
that had a fancy gazebo sort of shelter with benches for those wishing to
relax. Looking further across the courtyard
I saw where other apartments butted up, a concrete path with stairs leading to
the next level where those apartments led to other apartments and eventually to
where the elevated train station was located.
The sounds of the city entered almost subliminally as cars made their way
down a street I couldn’t see, trains came and left with their steel wheels
talking to the rails beneath them.
Then there
was the sound off to the other side of the apartment wall, a sound which was
later explained as a trash chute that each apartment dweller used to drop stuff
to the basement. I found it exhilarating that folks would be up in the middle
of the night dropping bits of trash as it bounced its way past on the way to
the collection bin.
How does
this have anything to do with my vantage point sixty-five years later while
sitting on the edge of a bed located in the Queen Anne Bed and Breakfast at two
o’clock in the morning? To be quite honest, I’m not really sure why this memory
came up. I decided to turn on my phone
and hope there was sufficient light coming in through the blinds to permit
taking a photograph. Resting the phone
on the edge of the bed, I pressed the activation button and got lucky. The picture comes close to experiencing the
darkness of the room being invaded by the lighting on the porch.
Maybe
there’s a touch of excitement that accompanied the moment, knowing I was
supposed to be sleeping and yet all my faculties were on full-memory
accumulation mode, similar to when I was a boy of ten trying to make the most
of a trip to be with my grandparents. That’s the best I can come up with to
explain a nighttime portal that opened long enough to take me back all those
years, long enough to savor a glimpse through my eyes, a wide-eyed child’s eyes.
