3326

I grew up in a story-and-a-half bungalow built in the mid-50s, and here it is, 3326, in all its majesty. When my parents’ postwar generation moved from the city to the modest inner-ring suburbs like the one I grew up in, it must have seemed like paradise, with its big yards, driveways between the houses, sunny treeless atmosphere, and freely circulating air. I myself moved to a charming but dark circa 1850 house in the city over 10 years ago, and although my current house, because of its location, is worth probably five times what 3326 is, and despite years of boomeresque disdain for the suburbs, I’ve come to appreciate all the fine qualities of my childhood home, and remember keenly what it was like living there.

Its most striking quality is the light. It has windows on all four sides, and its picture window and front door face south. The kitchen, in the back, has north and west light. The window at the top of the stairs and another small window in the living room also face west. My bedroom upstairs faces east. At different times of day, and with different combinations of drapes, curtains and doors open and closed, the house would take on vastly different qualities. To me, 3326 is and was alive, as alive and multifaceted and complex as any person I know. And with its lawn, driveway, backyard, and sky, with its views up the hill and down the street to the woods, that little piece of paradise in Parma, Ohio is as full of meaning to me as John Ford’s Monument Valley, or the National Mall in Washington DC.

What the Light Would Do, Part I
Early Morning, Kitchen
Sometimes you’d wake up before anyone else. The first place you’d go in that house, always, would be the kitchen. There, the first thing you’d do is open the café curtains, especially the ones on the window facing the back yard, to the north. On a quiet morning, with no one else up, no lights on and nothing stirring, the kitchen would be suffused with a soft, almost bluish light—especially if it was winter and the back yard was covered with a thick layer of pristine snow. Light from the living room, so powerful most of the time, would not be a factor, because the drapes and door would still be closed. The pale gentle majesty of the morning kitchen reigned. You might go to the side door and get the paper, but if so, you’d do it quietly, because this interregnum between night and day would not last long, and you wanted to relish the feeling of knowing a world of possibilities was before you, and you were the first one to be there for whatever was going to happen. For now, you’d leave the overhead light off, because the cool north light was the house, being itself, the way it was when it knew none of its inhabitants were around. In fact, you had the feeling it had been awake for a while, waiting for you.

You’d take the seat you knew you wanted at the kitchen table. Gradually, the rest of the family and the world would wake up around you, and things would be turned on, pastry would be broken out or eggs scrambled, coffee would be made, orange juice poured, and sections of the paper traded. The coolness and quietude would fade as the kitchen filled with people and the day progressed, but for a while the still, pregnant and eternal magic of the morning kitchen would stay with you, and you’d cherish it.