1.5 Drawing - Where I Grew Up

Bestest Friend and I are doing a blog project. Every day we will write a post on a pre-determined theme we chose randomly from a random noun generator. The theme for the fifth day of the month is "Drawing." FYI, I can't draw a stick figure that looks like what it's supposed to, so be kind.

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It's also NaBloPoMo, so go check out what other people are writing about this month!  San is keeping a list and there are 14 people participating!!

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Our book club book for the month was Writers & Lovers by Lily King (more on that to come after book club actually meets, but let me reassure you that I have thoughts) and there's a scene in which people in a writing workshop are instructed to draw the floor plan of the house where they grew up and tell stories about items in the house. It was an interesting concept, so I decided to try it. If nothing else, posting every day is forcing me to think outside what I normally write about.

The house was in the middle of a corn field. This is the layout of the "handyman's special" my parents purchased when I was in second grade. By the time I was in college, my parents had torn it down and replaced it with a prefabricated loft home, but this is what I remember of the old farmhouse.

Photo of the place taken in the summer of 2017.

The house had very few walls. It was open concept before open concept was a thing, I guess. The kitchen, dining room, and living room are one huge space in my mind. Maybe there were walls, but who is left to tell me I'm wrong? Before we moved in, an elderly man died there and I remember that when we toured the house before buying it, it was just a medical bed and medical supplies everywhere in that big space and the realtor talked a lot about how the open space made it easy for a wheelchair or walker.

There was a big picture window right next to the washer and dryer and we bought Penny the Cat (a mean cat we adopted almost immediately when we moved in to help us deal with all the mice that came with living in the corn) a window perch for that window and she laid there for what seemed liked her whole life, but must not have been true based on the evidence of rodent life and death we'd find in the morning. She'd sit on the platform and hiss at me as I walked by her. I was deathly scared of her.

The house had one heating vent in the entire downstairs, in the dining room near the living room. In the winter, my sister and I would put our clothes over the vent to warm them up and then dress very quickly while standing in front of it. We'd be able to see our breath in the bathroom on those mornings and we'd sometimes run the hot water in the bath while we brushed our teeth and hair just to get some semblance of feeling in our fingers.

In the dining room, my mom was so proud of her wagon wheel light fixture. I cut my hand on a broken glass once when my sister and I were home alone and all I remember is my sister trying to get me to the bathroom to clean it out, but I fainted on the way in the dining room and the wagon wheel was spinning, spinning. My sister was so scared. She told me later that she thought I was going to die. It was just a tiny cut. I didn't even need stitches. I was ever the drama queen and continue to get woozy at the sight of my own blood to this day.

On the west side of the house, there was a three-season porch just filled with junk and old furniture. I would sneak out there and read books on the old couch where my father taught me how to tie shoes. It was the only place with a door and walls and I could be alone and have privacy and read in peace and not be quizzed about whether or not I should be doing chores or homework. Penny the Cat couldn't get to me in there and no one else wanted to be in that messy porch, so I felt safe.

Does the home where you grew up still exist? Do you ever go back? Would you be able to draw a floor plan of it?

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To see what Bestest Friend has to say about Drawing, check out her blog at Too Legit To Quit.