24 November 2009

Oma


I remember walking across the pebbley tiled footpath through the neatly tended garden
to the house with the octagonal window. Through the green door and across multiple doormats, one soft, one made of wire and bristles, one inside the door. Your shoes can never be too clean you know.

Warm and cosy, never changing.

I remember the kettle sat on the gas hob, the kettle that must have had the loudest whistle in all the world. My mother hated it. I remember the little nook only I could squeeze into, sat on an orange topped stool overlooked by a woolen clown picture I had stitched. It hung proudly bright.
I remember the itchy stiff green sofa with covers clothing the arms where I sat watching the fabeltjeskrant before going to bed. I remember the jade and white stone coaster from my father's trip to India which sat in the middle of the round wooden table. I remember the little china box where pieces of dark diabetic chocolate were hidden. I used to take pieces when no one was looking. I remember the dining room table covered with what seemed to me to be carpet.

Everything always in it's place, but if I messed it all up it didn't matter at all.

I remember the steep steep stairs, they had black plastic edges. A tall brass stand iced with a lacey top greeted me at the top. I remember the wedding photo next to the bed the slanted ceiling overhanging.

I remember her warm hands praying over mine as she put me to bed. She used to say she was my kacheltje {little oven}.

I wish I could go back there again, to Ringalee 95, to her.

11 comments:

  1. What a sweet memory. You make me want to go there too. :) XOXO

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  2. This is perfect.
    Although I had a birth grandma and grannie, I had an adopted Oma who lived down the lane from me and I have many of the same memories of her.
    It's funny the sensory memories we can reatain after so many years, isn't it?
    Beautiful, beautiful piece of writing.
    Love&Light.

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  3. wonderfully warm :)
    You make me want to go there.

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  4. How sweet! You almost have me in tears!

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  5. This is a sweet cozy memory I want to wrap myself in...lovely my dear!

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  6. mmmm diabetic chocolates!

    i hope i can be a "little oven" to my grand children one day...what a beautiful image!

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  7. Memories so sweet like these are the binding threads that make life so sweet.

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  8. What a lovely memory!

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  9. such a great memory and beautifully written

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  10. I'm reading this as if I was there. Very well done. Memories like this always bring me home.

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  11. Beautiful. Such lovely writing.


    on a side note, whenever I am snuggling with Mr. Mans I ask if I can put my feel in the "oven" and then I slide my cold feet under his body weight.

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