As I age with each breath I take, I seem to feel more grateful for the ones that have passed. I seem to think a lot about times in my past, and about how different times led to the next moment in my life. We can waste so much time on “Iffas”…if I/we had done this, if that had happened if I/we had chosen this or that, but “iffas” don’t do anything but waste the precious moments we have left in life.

We need to treasure our today and really appreciate our tomorrows. And yet, it is very okay to look back in the review mirror of life and remember the steps that led us to today.

This last year we took a ride into the southern tier of New York State. On our way back up we stopped at the 3 different houses we had lived at as I progressed from kindergarten to fourth grade.

All of them are different than years before, yet the memories of events and various times spent at each are mine and will never change. The first house will be my focus for today, it is now a medical office, so the driveway is a parking area.

The first one we rented in the summer before my kindergarten started. It was a very old home, from back in the days of the underground railroad. It was brick, built in the 1850s.

There was so much I remember about it. So many lessons learned.

One thing I remember was that it had a wide winding staircase, I remember the steps were kind of slippery if you had socks on. I remember my mom fell down the stairs one time. I learned not to take stairs for granted.

I also remember a second, very narrow staircase that was only seen if you opened what appeared to be a pantry-type door. When you got to the second floor, from the second floor there was another narrow staircase that led up to the cupola. I remember climbing those stairs and looking out the windows, seeing the whole town from on top of the house. From there I learned how really small we are when compared to the world around us. That there is so much more than what we see on a daily basis. It felt almost magical there.

I also remember a part of the wall going up the stairs, it was cut, and behind the wall was a secret room with a rocker in it and a small fireplace. There was a throw rug and under it was a trap-type door. That room was dark, and felt so lonely. There was supposedly a tunnel from that house down to the town that was part of the underground railroad. We were told to never go back into that room again.

I remember how terribly scared I was of going to kindergarten. See I had been used to being home with my mom. Never being exposed to daycare or nursery school, I was terrified of leaving home. There was a hill and some pine trees next to the driveway where I had to get the bus. The first few days I “missed” the bus because I hid behind the trees. The bus stopped but he never saw me there. I would go back to the house each time and tell my mom that the bus didn’t get me. Well, she called the bus garage complaining that the driver wasn’t stopping for me. That next day, I once again went down, unaware that Mom was watching, I hid behind the tree, but this time the bus stopped totally and sat there with blinking lights. All of the sudden my mom said “Cynthia, come on, you are getting on the bus” ….she walked me, as I cried in fear, to the bus door, and introduced me to the driver, and well that ended my little avoidance of leaving home. Going back and looking at that house again was like turning back time to that scared little girl, but also it taught me that new adventures don’t need to be scary.

I remember my first day in kindergarten, ( after I was caught hiding behind the tree) as soon as I got in the room I panicked. There were floor-to-ceiling type curtains by the big window, I ran to them, twirled myself up in them so tightly, and just cried and cried. My teacher, I’m pretty sure her name was Mrs Taylor, was so calming, and she worked with me patiently until I finally unwound myself and realized I was going to be okay. I know that the same shyness I had then is still embedded deep within my being. I fight it often, it’s so easy to let it control my emotions if I give into it. It creates a sense of uncertainty, and insecurity if I let it. But that kindergarten teacher helped me learn to overpower the shyness, and had I never gone through that, I don’t think I would have learned how to live with it, keeping it boxed up, and trying to stay stronger than it can be.

In kindergarten, my very first day, there was a boy who came up to me and told me it would be okay. This boy became my very best friend for the years we lived in the Skaneateles school district. Oh yes, we moved from one rental to another and a third in that time, but through it all, he was in my classes and my best friend. I remember we had play time for part of our time in class. At first, he saw I was really scared, and he told me we could just do something together, and that way I could feel better. So we played on the teeter-totter, each of us just focusing on the other. I remember how good it felt to laugh as my side went up in the air. I also remember laughing so hard that I started to pee, but as the little bit rolled down towards him, he gently got off and told me not to worry about it. He could have totally embarrassed me (more than I did myself), but he did not. It really helped me become comfortable with this whole school experience.

I learned lessons about helping out and hard work. See the well water was not safe to drink. The landlord was going to have the well reduced, but in the meantime, we needed fresh water. My dad was a traveling salesman and was gone during the week. My mom was caring for the 3 girls, and my brother Peter ( who was a toddler) and she was pregnant with my brother Tom. So to help out, my older sister Karen ( she was 15 at the time ), my sister Pam ( who was 6), and I ( at 5 years old) would carry gallon thermoses down to the Mobil station at the foot of the hill to get fresh water. It was something we needed to do, no whining, we did it. It was kind of fun too, cuz the water hose hung from the ceiling in the garage bay area, and to get the water to come out, we had to bend the end of the hose, I usually got it right on, but a few times I came back wetter then I was when I went down there. The men at the garage were very nice to us and did not mind at all when we came. I must admit though we were thankful once the well was fixed.

Through our first couple of years there, I really believe some foundation for the rest of my life was built. The exposure to a new world, outside of my family, what it was like to have a real friend, that there is nothing wrong with hard work, that there are no free rides and that life is full of surprises.

Yes, this house and the couple years we were there created life lessons and memories that live strong in me.

Until the next post, Mrs. Justa alias Cindy