The Maid's Room - July 13 2024

 

The Maid’s Room

July 13 2024

In the back-split

my basement bedroom

opened onto the backyard.

Its own private entrance

and the sense of being apart:

the separation I craved

long before

I even knew the word introvert.

My childhood home

from well before

the end of the last century.

In an age

of middle class aspiration

they called it the maid’s room

before it was mine.

At least in the realtor’s reckoning.

As if my hard-working parents

children of the Depression

would have ever considered help.

Let alone a live-in.

A domestic servant

with a place of her own

downstairs,

a low-ceilinged room

with a queen sized bed,

small closet,

and tall-boy bureau

with sticky drawers

and one tippy leg.

Across a narrow hall

there was a 3-piece bathroom

with a locking door

she could call her own,

even though

it was open to all.

     . . . It was always a “she”, of course;

because as everyone knows

domesticity

is woman’s work.

The ceiling was low,

the tile floor cold.

And a strong stink of mildew

leaked from the closet

and got into everything.

Which probably stuck to me as well,

but as with all smells

it doesn’t take long

to stop noticing.

Still, as spartan as it was

I loved having that place

all to myself.

A secluded little haven

away from everyone else.

How I slept so well

on sultry nights

when the basement kept its cool.

And its one big window

looking out

on a lush green lawn

that smelled of fresh cut grass.

A blizzard of snow,

back when winters

were actually cold.

A bucolic autumn scene

in crimson and gold.

Where I could walk directly out

into the stillness of night

when the moon was full,

my slippered feet

snug in knitted fleece

crunching through the leaves.