Wrapped up in a Cape

At the time I was almost 5, I rambled around this big Cape Cod house in the eastern suburbs of Syracuse, New York never worrying about the future. Dad had an engineering degree from Yale which suited him well at General Electric's beautiful new plant in Liverpool (circa, 1950's).

There was Mom and two small kids in toe. The first night there we were low on furniture and Dad went out to one of the only take out restaurants , Delamorte's .We ate Italian from take out boxes on the sprawling hardwood floors of the dining room. I could never imagine that my parents would die, that my older brother would leave the house full of secrets to me, which have lead to the creation of stories I am now writing, and sharing through publishing .

But throughout the house, the actual construction lent itself to secrets. In the bedrooms upstairs were what we called our "storage spaces". They had. horizonal doors (sitting just above the baseboard that opened . The doors faced each other , 2 x 2 and opened section by section into the rafters. Cold seeped in there in winter and the mustiness of summer added a strange process of dust collecting over the years.My mother was not a meticulous housekeeper, and I guess none of us were. That created log jams of school papers, old clothing , even outworn household accessories that collected there..

The process to clean all this was dirty , painstaking and also wondrous. I found old pictures from the time my parents started dating . Letters from Aunts and Uncles in Texas (on my Dad's side), and in the basement where my older brother had his art and weight lifting studio , more surprises besides the art. Old notes and outlines; stories', autobiographies and poetry.

The old cape was singing with treasures that had nothing to do with dressers, antique bed sets, lamps and expensive curios. I don't know if I have moved forward since four members of my family are gone and I walked through the rooms of the Cape for the last time December 2019. I like to think they are proud of me . I do feel 'we' are all still wrapped up in the Cape Cod together, starting to share the best of the secrets.