Grandmother's house had a narrow staircase rising to the roof.
Each step was covered by a handwoven Persian rug alive with colors, layered one over another. The patterns climbed the stairs and danced upward through the house.
Worn edges and softened colors, so familiar to me. Soft green walls surrounded the stairway, with a simple pale railing running along the right side, giving the whole thing an earthy look.
At the top, I found my small heaven of timelessness and quiet.
My two-by-three-foot secret corner of the world.
The house was usually filled with guests, and when I couldn't play anymore with the cousins and next-door neighbors out in the courtyard, I would hide away, drawing Grandmother's stories and playing with my doll, Sage.
One day, Grandmother called me to go and help prepare the lunch table.
Instead, I grew so quiet that no one knew where I was hiding. After a while, I noticed Sage looking at me with her beautiful green eyes.
"What are you looking at? I'm not hungry yet!" I whispered.
I could see the sun shining through the small window built into the door, the one that opened out to the roof.
"I wish I could open it and see the river from up here!" I whispered again. "Stop looking at me, I don't have the key!"
"I wish I had a room up here!" I said, this time not whispering much. "It should be big enough for me and you to have a bed." I looked at Sage.
"I would paint it the color of a rainbow," I said while brushing Sage's beautiful honey-blond hair.
"I would also have a closet for all of your clothes." I looked at the pile of garments cut to look like dresses and pants, imperfectly stitched together for Sage.
"I want to have a desk and chair, maybe two chairs for you and me, so I can paint all day long." I looked at Sage, smiling, almost picturing it in my head.
"Ok, come here now, it's time to eat," Grandmother said loudly.
I looked downstairs over the rail and saw her looking up. "How did you know I was here?" I asked. "I didn't," Grandmother smiled and walked toward the kitchen.
I put Sage carefully in her small bed made from my uncle's shoe box, and covered her with the blanket I had found in Grandmother's basement and cut to fit the box perfectly. I kissed Sage and ran downstairs to join Grandmother for lunch.
Grandmother's table always unfolded like a little feast of abundance.
Her cooking was her love language. She decorated her fragrant saffron rice and beef stew with fresh herbs.
You could always find pickles she had made over the winter and kept in her basement.
I often wondered whether Grandmother was feeding a family of fourteen or a seven-year-old granddaughter with a tiny stomach.
Behind the dining table hung a print of The Kiss by Francesco Hayez. I had heard my uncle say the name, and all I could think about was why the two people were always kissing when there was clearly no room for that!
"Were they in love?" I thought.
"She could have fed him delicious food, that's better than a kiss!" I said to Grandmother.
"Perhaps they had already eaten," Grandmother said. "Or they are about to." She continued, "Why don't you eat your food? I made you celery stew that you like, with tiny pieces of meat."
I liked Grandmother's house with all the random ceramics and paintings hanging on the walls and flowers arranged everywhere there was a surface.
It was busy, but felt like a warm hug. I felt safe. Sometimes I dreamed about all the pictures and flowers coming to life and dancing around, like the story Grandmother told me about the talking plants.
"Grandmother, I wish I had a room here, right up where the roof door is!" I said, playing with my food.
"I'll make you a room out of blankets in my room," Grandmother replied.
"It's not the same. I wanna be on my own, sleep on my own, and draw on my own," I said.
"Help me get those plates to the sink now. It's time for the afternoon nap," Grandmother replied.
Years later, Grandmother's house was a three-story house with big staircases and big windows, granite floors, and modern walls.
My parents moved back in. They gave me the room on the top floor, in the very corner where my little two-by-three-foot hiding place had once been.
It had a big bed.
A desk with two chairs.
A closet.
The window opened to a view of the river.
Everything I had ever whispered to Sage about, down to the two chairs.
Sage was nowhere to be found. Or perhaps still in a basement that no longer existed.
The shoe box, the blanket cut to fit, the imperfect little garments, all of it swallowed by the demolition, the way everything gentle is swallowed by something efficient.
The granite floors were cold. The modern walls were quiet. The big staircase had no Persian rugs, no worn edges, no patterns dancing upward.
Nobody called me for lunch. Nobody looked up from the bottom of the stairs, pretending they didn't know where I was. Not even a fake painting of the Kiss.
I sat at my desk with two chairs and painted.
I painted a narrow staircase covered in Persian rugs. I painted soft green walls. I painted a five-year-old whispering to a honey-blond doll.
I painted saffron rice and celery stew and a print of two people kissing.
I painted flowers arranged on every surface and ceramics on the walls, and a warm hug of a house that no longer existed.
I had the room. I would trade it for another sleepover with Grandmother!
