childhood

My blue trunk

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When I was a child, there was an old blue steamer trunk in my bedroom. I used it like a bedside table, but usually just stored my stuffed animals on it. I wasn’t allowed to open it .. it was big enough that I could’ve gotten closed into it, so it was always locked.

Every now and then my mom would open the trunk and she and I would go through the contents. The trunk held my baby things. Tiny dresses, cloth books, baby toys, rattle, dish, cup, spoon, stuffed animals. I was able to convince my mom to let me have the stuffed animals to play with, but everything else just stayed tucked away in the trunk.

The trunk made it seem almost like my babyhood lived in my room with me.

I never knew the history of the trunk. I think it was my mom’s, originally, but I don’t know for sure.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I had someone come by and cart away things to the dump. One of the things that left my house was the trunk. It had stayed with me my entire life, eventually serving as storage for Christmas decorations. It lived out in my shed where the damp and cold eventually rusted and rotted the trunk.

The day the trunk was taken away, I just felt relief to get rid of things. Now, I feel like I should’ve taken a moment to sit with the trunk. To thank it for a lifetime of storing my special things. It wasn’t until the next day when I realized how important that trunk had been and how I’d let it go with giving it proper regard.

So this little post is my salute to the blue steamer trunk. You know, I don’t even have a photo of that trunk. It’d always been such a fixture in my life, I don’t think I really saw it anymore.

Goodbye blue trunk. You served me well.

Childhood Fears: The basement

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you know what sounds good right now my grandfather
asked from the red recliner by the front window

a nice big bowl of ice cream from the deep freeze
what do you think Squirt want to go down to the freezer

Squirt was me and I was having nothing to do
with going down into the haunted basement

there be monsters a sign should read above the door
or beware of the portal to Hell or doorway to death

the first three steep steps had no handrail
so it seemed like stepping off into the abyss

uncarpeted glossy wood slippery to child sized shoes
no traction no handhold a sudden fall an instant death

I don’t want ice cream but my grandparents
insisted I conquer my fear of the basement

staring down into the chasm I could almost see the monsters
starring back at me from dark empty shelves

my grandfather’s power tools could be nightmares come to life
the deep freeze grumbled threateningly from the darkest corner

I could tell where the witch hid which corners the ghosts crouched
I knew what lived underneath the workbench

going to the basement for ice cream meant a battle
with my deepest fears fear of falling of slipping of dying

fear of dark corners and empty shelves of mythical monsters
and cunning beasts all waiting for my small self to wander in

all waiting for grandpa to want ice cream grandpa I said
can you come with me he just chuckled you’ll be all right

the monsters and creatures and witches may not have been real
but the fears and the deep terror in my heart were

one more night I faced the monsters alone and wished someone
would hold my hand and show me gently the way to safety