The Beach House

                                                 

                                                              THE BEACH HOUSE



  This is a first memory.

     As we grow older and the future shrinks, thoughts of long years past seem to surface through dense folds of brain matter and demand a smile or sentimental tear.
     Most people have a first memory. Many have no recall before kindergarten days. I've been told that my own baby mind was unusually alert, as I will explain forthwith. However, I know someone who claims cognitive reaction to lights in the delivery room at birth. She also has a photographic memory. At fifteen she was valedictorian of our high school graduating class. At nineteen she graduated from college summa cum laud. Sigh!
     This is my first conscious memory. I see Gramma, plump and rosy, as she opened the car door and lifted me out. My stubby nose detected a strange odor. It was the primitive smell of the ocean. I looked up as I heard the seagulls. They screamed, soaring overhead, so big, so loud. They frightened me at first. As we made return visits to the beach I grew to think of them as wonderful amusements. I remember throwing bread crumbs to them and chasing after them. It was a delight to see the raucous birds winging off, seemingly afraid of my wildly waving arms and shrill, childish laughter.
     That day, as Gramma got supplies out of the big black car, I crawled up to the door of The Beach House. Note: I capitalize here, because The Beach House was always referred to as a proper noun. Pulling myself up, I teetered and held on to the door jamb. I was wearing a thin silk baby dress, puckered in pink thread across the chest and tied at the neck opening with braided, pink yarn. I had difficulty crawling without getting my knees caught in the hem dragging before me. Getting on all fours didn't help. I don't really remember the dress in all that detail. Gramma told me about it when I was about four, as she dressed my baby doll. "Baby" was about the size of a one-year old. She wore a number of my toddler clothes over time, including shoes. I DO remember the white, high-top shoes I wore. They were new and I kept looking at them.
     The two story salt-box style house was dark brown weathered wood. It stood in the middle of tall, shifting dunes. Sparse plants popped up here and there, creeping across the sand. This was Hermosa Beach, California in the 1930s.
     Gramma held my hand while she unlocked the door. Letting go, I crept over the sill. With her back to me, she didn't see as I stood and walked across the bare wood floor to the kitchen, which lay straight through from the front door and living room.
     When she turned around she almost fell over me. My baby book recorded that I was nine months old. How I remember that event at such an early age and not what I did yesterday is a puzzlement.
     My next immediate feat was creeping up the steep stairs and bumping down one step at a time on my diapered derriere. This was the beginning of my career as a fearless explorer, at least until I was old enough to know what fear was. I think that was about the time I had to confront high school algebra.
     Sleep always came quickly and lingered long at The Beach House. My upstairs bedroom faced the ocean. I was lulled by the sound of not too distant waves and by fresh, salty breezes that slipped through the open, screened window. They brushed against my cheek and gently tiptoed away, carrying with them the day's adventures which nudged at my wakefulness.
     Strangely, except for The Beach House itself, I don't remember many details of our doings during the several summers that followed. Gramma sold the property at about the time I started school.
     Vague though the bulk of these memories are, they repose under a protected canopy in my brain. Along with others, some keen and restless, there is a fondness and a longing to keep them company.