Nostalgia

I'm enjoying my first friday night in my new apartment. I've arranged everything, with just a few things left to hang on the walls. It's my first night since the move, where I can relax, spin a few records, have a couple of drinks and dance. I've been playing my piano every time the record or tape comes to an end. I'm imagining the people in the suite above me, listening to me play. I've been playing all sorts ... classical - Bach, Beethoven, Mozart ... old fashioned - When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, Till We Meet Again ... as well as my own favourites - Ave Maria, If A Picture Paints a Thousand Words....

I'm feeling very nostalgic tonight.

At the moment I've got a tape playing. 'The Angels Rejoiced' by Nicolette Larson just finished playing (did you know she died quite a while ago? I just heard that). Now it's 'Summer Wine' sung by Nancy (Sinatra) and Lee. I have that on a record too. ... Now its 'Some Velvet Morning' by the same (Nancy and Lee) some velvet morning when I'm straight, I'm gonna open up your gate, and maybe tell you about faidra, and how she gave me life, and how she made it in, some velvet morning when I'm straight....

When I lived in the haunted house that I half own with x, on Vancouver Island, I used to listen to the same music. That house is over 100 years old. It has a lot of history. When I lived there, I could feel it in the air, especially when I'd had a few drinks, and put on my old music. I used to sit in the livingroom on a friday night, gazing at the old fireplace that was put in a century ago, sipping my vodka and orange juice, and allow the ghosts to speak to me. The old music filled the house, seeming to echo off the walls, calling the spirits to life. I kept the lights low, in keeping with the mood. I'd done research on the house, and felt close to it. I felt I was part of its story. Every so often I would be distracted by a faint light showing through the window panes fronting the livingroom where I sat - a sailboat drifting up Baynes Sound, or a beach bonfire on Denman Island across the narrow stretch of water. I would get up from the couch and stand in front of the window as the music played on behind me. I would dance alone, and watch my reflection superimposed over the moonlit scene outside.

Sometimes the need for even more solitude overcame me, and I would check outside to see if it was raining. If it was wet out, I climbed the narrow staircase to the low ceilinged half story upstairs, and settled into the armchair beside the window. I would sit there, listening to the rain on the roof, looking out at the black on the other side of the glass, as music from the livingroom downstairs drifted up through the floorboards. I used to sit there in the dark for an hour or more.

If it wasn't raining, I would go out to climb my favourite tree. Our house was surrounded by a thick, tangled hedge of overgrown cedars, rose vines, blackberry vines, and deciduous trees. That hedge was so overgrown and wild, I found hidden rooms within it where I could hide if necessary, or where I could go just to be alone. At the front corner of the property was my favourite climbing tree. I would let myself out the back door and pass the chicken yard. I always called softly to the chicken family cosily ensconsed in their little house, wishing them goodnight. Sometimes one or the other of my cats joined me as I crossed the lawn to the tree. I would ease past my greenhouse, and lift the low hanging branches of the old cedar tree to duck underneath, into the hedge. The moonlight hardly penetrated that secret place. I would ease down onto the lowest branch and one of the cats might leap up onto my lap. I could still hear faintly, the music playing in the house. When I was ready, I would lift the cat down from my lap, and climb the tree. I climbed hundereds of feet, it was the best climbing tree. I was far higher than our three story house, I could see over the brambly hedge to the moonlit sea. I reached the very tip, where the wind made the trunk sway, and I rested on the branch there, thinking my own thoughts. My initials are impressed into the bark way up there, the bark was so new when I made my name, I was able to press with my thumbnail, I didn't even need a knife.

Has it ever happened to you that you want to impress upon people the way you feel about a moment, but the words are puny compared to your emotions? I guess you had to be there, in order to feel what I felt at that old, old house ... the way I feel about that house now, and whenever I remember it.