home places for my heart

I went home to Cloverly in my dreams last night. Daddy turned the car into the long straight dirt lane that marched through a field of soybeans on one side and corn on the other. At the end of the lane stood Grandma and Granddaddy in front of the daylily bed planted by my mother when she was a girl. Grandma is in her house dress, with her arms folded in front... Granddaddy is in his khakis, head slightly tilted, gently smiling. My sister Gayle and I scramble out of the car and we are home... surrounded by the lovely lilt of the Virginia Tidewater accent, the welcoming arms of our grandparents, and the old house waiting for us.
We bounce up the brick sidewalk built in the 1860's... laid in a herringbone pattern ... mossy and slick in places... bumpy. The yard is full of trees and shade... not much grass... a challenging croquet course. To the right is the stump with a wooden box of portulaca in full bloom in a small patch of sunlight. To the left of the house, slightly to the rear, is the old judge’s office. He built the house just before the War Between the States and like many lawyers at the time, worked from an office at home.
I stand and look at that beloved old house... two story with a flat roof (the judge ran out of money when the War started and never finished the roof)... large front porch... oversized front door... grey with dark green shutters... wavy glass in the windows. Then we race inside slamming the screen door behind us. It is all still there... unchanged... waiting for our return.
The front hall runs parallel to the front of the house. To the left, at the end of the hall is the library, now grandma and granddaddy’s bedroom. The hall tree stands next to their bedroom door... granddaddy’s hats hang on its hooks and the wooden Chinese checker board is stored underneath the seat. The hall is lined with ornately carved, infinitely uncomfortable wooden chairs. When there is a thunderstorm in the night, grandma wakes us and we sit in those chairs until the storm blows over. The curved staircase is to the right as you enter the front door, its bannister polished smooth by generations of children’s posteriors (mine included) sliding down from the second floor. Underneath the stair is a little closet that holds children’s play furniture. Lovely old prints, sepia, oval frames, landscapes and wild animals... scenes from times in the land of far away... hang on the walls.
The front parlor with the Victorian faded green plush mahogany sofa and chairs (sized for giants) and fireplace is the same. The table from that parlor now stands by my bed. In front of the fireplace is a screen... a portrait of an unknown, black haired young woman painted by an unknown artist. The vases on that mantel, that I filled with althea and daylily blooms, now rest on a mantel in my house. This room became Aunt Nina’s bedroom the summer she came to Cloverly to die.
The kitchen is the next room off the front hall... large... an ice box used for bread storage... a refrigerator... a stove... a table holding the water bucket and dipper... a table and chairs for meals... cracked linoleum on the floor... the site of our Saturday night baths in the old tin washtub... breakfasts of boiled eggs, toast and bananas... mayonnaise on my breakfast egg instead of butter if I wanted it. The little washroom/mudroom/backporch on the back side of the kitchen held a table with a basin , glasses and a mirror. Here you brushed your teeth and washed your hands with water dipped from the bucket in the kitchen. When you were finished, you threw the water out into the back yard off the steps. It is a skill to be able to brush your teeth with one small glass of water. A door at the back of the kitchen led to the old kitchen wing that was closed off. Dilapidated and filled with cast-off treasures, we delighted in exploring its dusty contents.
The dining room was at the right end of the front hall, opposite the library/bedroom. A fat wood stove, square wooden dining table, a small screen t.v. sitting on a table by the front window and two curved glass front china cabinets filled the room. The afternoon sun would fall through the back door and turn the lead crystal bowls into the source of dancing rainbows of light. One of the smaller bowls sits in my glass front cabinet now... making rainbows.
Upstairs were bedrooms filled with iron beds, wash stands, and chests. The summer I was learning how to blow bubble gum bubbles, I stored my used gum on the iron headboard of my bed to be used the next day in pursuit of the perfect bubble. A bookcase filled with books and a door that opened out to the roof of the porch stood in the upstairs hall. Stepping out on the roof was an adventure... you could see through the trees... heat shimmered off the flat tar roof in the summertime.
I saved the best room for last... the porch. Square, solid, pillars supporting it, low to the ground with an old, worn step up... our family room in the summer. During the day, the porch was the site of the Chinese Checker school, taught by my Grandma. She was a teacher by trade and loved beating us fair and square, no quarter given to children. You were a grown-up the day you beat Grandma at checkers. Many sessions of play school were held using the children’s furniture from the hall. I spent endless hours on the porch... reading, drawing, listening to the sounds of summer and smelling the damp earth... seeing the faded remnants of the people who once lived in the house. There we sat in the evening as the fireflys came out for their night time light show, listening to the cicadas as they sang their loud, rhythmical song, watching the cars go by at the end of the lane, the adults commenting on the car’s passengers... grown-ups telling stories, talking about the kinfolk, judging the state of the crops and the world while little children listened and learned.
When our cousins came to play, the porch was the launch pad for our adventures on the farm. When Grandma reached the end of her patience with her herd of grandchildren and went to the lilac bush to grab a switch, we fled from the front porch to run the rows of corn... getting lost in the tall green stalks that shaded us from the heat. Grandma’s pretend anger gave us the perfect excuse to run amok among the corn... careful not to damage the corn in our freedom frenzy... returning later to be soothed by a drink of well water out of the dipper in the kitchen water bucket.
That world is gone now. Another family bought the house, changed the roof, cut all the trees, tore down the old kitchen wing and the judge’s office. The ghosts that lived in that old house now have the company of those little children who loved it... Gayle, Peggy, Eddie, Kenny, Kay, Stuart...a home for the spirit that even though it is no longer, still provides comfort and joy in the land of sweet memory.
If going home to God is as sweet as going home to Cloverly, the trip down the lane to heaven will be a joyful homecoming indeed. "Goin’ home, goin’ home... I’m just goin’ home. Some sweet day..." Thanks be to God for all the home places of my heart... for Cloverly... for the farm in South Georgia... for our first home in Waco... for our home now on the farm...for the churches that have been my soul’s homeplace... Crescent Hill Baptist... Bruington Baptist in Virginia... Clyattville Baptist.... Lake Shore Baptist... First Baptist Asheville... First Congregational UCC... I have been home... I am now at home... I am going home... I remember and give thanks.