The Guest Room

27 February 2006 14:47 Renée memory lane

Because I no longer have a room of my own at either of my parents’ houses, when I go back to Small Town Iowa to visit my family I am required to take up lodging in my mother’s guest room. I don’t mind staying in this room, but whenever I step into it I feel like I have entered a time capsule.

On the surface the guest room contains my maternal grandmother’s bedroom suite, a few pieces of furniture from my childhood, a closet full of clothes that should have been taken to the consignment store years ago, and various other things that my mother labels as her “antiques.”

However to my surprise, as I peered into drawers, opened boxes, and looked under the bed I found more than junk and ancient relics. I discovered reminders of my other lives: There were boxes filled with nearly-forgotten souvenirs of my high school glory days, mementos of my often idealized college years, and evidence of my life as a single career girl.

And as I listened to the cassette tapes of my favorite “hair bands” on my dorm-sized stereo while teaching my six year old niece to arrange books in alphabetical order on the bookshelf that my grandfather made for me when I was her age, I had a thought: The room wasn’t so much a time capsule as it was a living memory.

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