377 Days - Blog #5 My Happy Place

So vacations where I travel are actually not a frequency in my life.  I am definitely a homebody… at least I have fallen into that groove in the last several years.  And certainly, even when I travel, I like to see other places as the ones who live there – not as a fly by night tourist.

Of course this year, vacation full stop is not really possible.  The consequence of the first year on a job and having to accrue time off.  But I work in a tourist attraction… so I’m not really complaining.

This week I seem to be taking on a number of home tasks for others who are going away.  And, the weird, happy serendipity of it is… I feel that magical escape for a few days that one can get from a week at the Cape or Maine or abroad in Europe.

You see, I’m spending the week at Mt. Pleasant Ave.

Maybe it is because of this place I like the buildings of theater so much.  Or museums.  Many rooms in Beauport had the smell of the Happy Attic.  My ability to find magic in the dust of a room undoubtedly comes from having nearly forty years of memories in this little spot in Central Mass.

My day has felt out of sorts because of the anticipation of a few nights not in my regular groove, sleeping in my own bed with the noises of the woods to which I am now accustomed.  But I came out to the back deck with the dog and saw the sun that decided it was here for a curtain call and resolved to bring out the laptop and a glass of wine to remember and listen between the sound of cars passing on Main Street for the echoes of summers past on this lawn…

… when the stone fireplace had hot coals for cooking hamburgers and hotdogs

… when the grass was littered with those aluminum lawn chairs with plastic weaving

… when the croquet set was spread out across the yard and I just wanted to stare at the pretty rainbow colors of the goal

… laughter

… loud voices (because, come on, this is a Brennan household)

… children on swings

… the tire swing

…Abigail fleeing my tail pulls

…fishing (the playgame given to us to clean the leaves) from the brook

… flowers, beautiful flowers

… memories I can’t see in mind but are imprinted on photographs from baby pictures

… a time when my parents were younger than I am now – when my grandparents were younger than my parents are now

It’s all still here.  It makes a happy melody with every gathering that spills out of the kitchen onto this deck.  Every Easter egg hunt.  A quiet evening as the daylight ebbs and the sound of the crickets intensify.

Then I think of a more recent summer, with a clam bake and a wedding party for cousins who live far away.

Or a winter when the toilets broke and all the uncles came out here to dig a hole in the frozen ground to get to the septic system.  Well, one dug.  The others stood around with a beer.

But it all lives here, in a warm glow that lingers even as this sun has given way to dusk.

This is my happy place.  And I am lucky to have it.