The MUSIC ROOM…a Child’s Escape
When I was ten years old our family lived in a 13 room, 3 story Victorian house in Wellesley, Massachusetts. The home was nowhere near as elaborate as it sounds. Seven of us lived there...my four older sisters and my parents, and we actually rented out two rooms (made into a very small apartment) to a local schoolteacher to make ends meet. It was a very “lived-in” abode with hand-me-down furniture and an air of hectic fun and chaos. This was true of all the rooms with the exception of one.
We called it the “Music Room” and it was my favorite, especially in the wintertime, when the doors were closed tight (to save on heating) and the room became my private, if somewhat chilly, land of make believe.
I used to sneak into the shivery half-darkness...a braided and scrubbed ten-year old hugging my arms tightly around me. I never turned on the lights. no matter how dark the winter’s day, and I would always sit in the same place...perched high in the exact middle of an austere Victorian loveseat.
Like the afternoon shadows my eyes would seek out the objects in the room. The piano dominated the area, covering half the wall and wide enough to carry a Tiffany lamp, 3 stacks of sheet music, a violin and a clarinet atop it’s paisley shawl. It was the most ornate piano I have ever seen, each piece of wood carved and set into the gigantic black body. Even the legs were knobbed and curled into immense pedestals sturdy enough to carry the weight.
The rest of the objects in the room vied with the piano...the marble table tops turning pink from the reflection of the peach colored wallpaper, the leather book covers, the frosted light globe hanging by a “gold” chain and, best of all…two Victorian side chairs, my little “fat ladies” stuffed into flowered brocade, the dark scrolled wood curving into shoulders, short arms jutting at either side and the legs planted firmly apart on the floor.
When I was in the “Music Room” the everyday hustle and bustle of the rest of the house disappeared. I became a grand lady, a princess, at peace in my serene and elegant world. I would give a slight nod to the piano...my imaginary recital was about to begin !
posted by Ginnie at 3:18 PM
11 Comments:
Beautiful writing. You are able to recall so many details and translate them into words that we can enjoy. The house sounds amazing. I remember special moments like that when the world help all the magic powers to summon a plane of reality as yet unseen. Thanks for this post.
You had the soul of an artist even then. And now to be able to so describe it.
I didn't have a room like that, but I used to get under our baby grand piano and pretend it was my house. It is funny now in retrospect, how safe and protected I felt under that piano.
I hear you, Ginnie, a child's inagination making it's own world. It goes with what I was saying in my last post, we weren't rushed here and there as kids or planted in front of TV and video games. We used our imaginations to create worlds of wonder and the games to go with them.
BTW, AC is right!
If only we could retain that childish imagination. I can still remember times like that.
Don't we all need a "music room" today?
Isn't it interesting how wonderful and grand these old houses when we see them todau. But when you lived there, it didn't seem grand.
Lovely photo; very evocative.
Wow...you had me right there with you, Ginnie. What a great piece of writing.
And the room sounded like my kind of place. How great for a child to have that and retain those memories all these years later.
You are reminding me of a Morag Joss book I recently read. Those kinds of rooms are the best! The rooms that summon all sorts of fantasy and peace.
Peace,
~chani
Oh how I wish I had a music room.
Lovely story.
My music room was in books I borrowed from the public library, as there were six of us in a three bedroom flat. But I knwow what you mean. It's wonderful to have a music room of one's own, wherever it is.
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