The Basement

No matter how many times she descended those basement stairs it always felt like a mystery that might not end well.

Dark and dank.

But carrying that quilt all gathered up in scrawny arms, barely able to see over the mound of yellow daisies cascading across the circa 1960s cotton fabric packed with tiny lint balls, I knew she was brave. Even if she did not.

Head held high; from a distance one might have assumed she carried a bouquet.

“One more step. Focus forward. Do not seek out the shadowy spaces and all will be well”, she told herself over and over. Some days she managed this better than others.

Which looking back I find quite remarkable considering she was only 9.

In the middle of boxes, furniture and what grandma called "what nots" sat an old metal chair. She moved quickly; pulling and sliding it across the room. Annoyed all the while as screeching of metal against concrete pierced her ears.

But watching her actions, I could tell it was worthwhile as her small body climbed atop that little chair to stand tall.

It only took one swoop of an arm to throw that blanket up. Her face full of delight as it floated above for the shortest second, coming down like angel wings for a perfect landing right beside the bag of clothespins she would use to pinch the folds together in back.

Once inside, as long as she didn’t lean her weight in that direction, this could indeed become her sacred place and she appeared quite satisfied with her effort thus far. Now for the rug.

Mama had given her the old rug when she spied it rolled up like a sausage over there, under the pile of outgrown toys. It had once lay in front of the red sofa. Beautifully braided with so many brilliant colors the years had slowly softened into pastels.

Like the watercolor painting she had once seen of Miami Beach at the Jensen’s house (until the family went their separate ways and it sold at the community garage sale) the rug now set aside, unwanted.

Except by her.

Carefully unrolling the faded colors, she placed it inside her blanket tent atop the cold basement floor almost damp to the touch. Centering it just so, like a waiting altar, she sat cross-legged folding her small hands like a quiet prayer.

In the silence I could almost hear her young heart just beginning to search for the light in this world. It was the unknown seed planted in the summer of life that would lead her into every future season, changing the course of her choices forever.

But all she understood in this moment was how she really needed a pillow. Maybe two.

Up the wooden stairs she trudged to her room, and back down. This time two pillows in tow. One white, stolen off her sister’s bed. One bright yellow, hers, with Raggedy Ann and Andy smiling upside down tucked under two pale arms.

Focused once again on avoiding shadows, she passes the green and white swirled kitchen table held up by chrome legs she used to crawl underneath in the early years. Being very still while watching Mama prepare dinner, she’d pretend her family was the Brady Bunch.

She still remembers the day daddy replaced it with a large wooden table bought at that fancy store. It was then she recognized change for the first time.

She did not like it.

There are no real windows here in the basement. Only a tiny rectangle higher up on the wall where light filters in like the softest rain, with a latch to remove yourself should one be trapped within these shadows. So it feels more like a cave you take the chance of getting lost within when you are a child.

Somehow, I can tell she is becoming okay with that.

I can feel her strength taking form within the bones of her young soul as she stops to grab the pale pink milk glass lamp off a dusty shelf. Mama discarded it long ago and lets her play with it.

It has no shade. Just a bulb she knows will light up the dim interior of wooden walls, old furniture and pieces of history that once mattered. That still matter. To her. One born into this land with ancient thoughts.

She brings the lamp along to the sacred place, inserting the plug at the end of its dirty white cord into the wall unit behind. Settling in beside her rug and pillows, it only takes a click of the little black switch for shadows to begin dancing over and around the soft bulb, naked without its shade.

Like a musical with no music at all.

Laying back on the smiling pillow she brings forth the book she has kept tucked inside her zippered sweatshirt since morning. She checked it out at the school library on Friday after her favorite teacher read it during story time last week.

Her small hands trace the title, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

She identifies with the main character, Frannie, who walks through the streets of Brooklyn in 1912 seemingly small and weak, but nestled inside there was courage and strength passed on from an alcoholic father who was the only one who truly understood her thirst to write was intertwined with her need to survive.

Like Frannie, reading was to be her first journey to the sacred places language can take you when you already know you were born with words etched upon your soul.

And, like Frannie, though worlds and decades apart, every word she read from here on out would evolve into her own voice, finding its way to paper and readers.

Opening the books hard cover with the painted tree growing out of the sidewalk, she begins.

"There's a tree that grows in Brooklyn. Some call it the Tree of Heaven. No matter where it's seed falls, it makes a tree which struggles to reach the sky. It grows in boarded up lots and out of neglected rubbish piles ...

It is the only tree that grows out of cement."

Like a drink of water in the desert of life is the gift of someone believing in you. Standing in your shadow so there is space to face your fears in the basement.

Like Frannie’s father.

Like hers.

Thank you for reading!

If you enjoyed my last book "If I Saw You on Sunday" which was a fundraiser for a school in Mexico, I am currently working towards another book of my collective writings and have joined Vocal to help with the cost.

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Salud!