When I was a little girl, 98 Central Ave. was a magical place.
Snapshots:
--Sweet Nana at the kitchen table, soft spoken, smart, stylish.
--Taciturn Pa sitting on the corner of the couch with his affectionate (but unfortunate looking) mutt, Rocky.
--A gold sequined, sparkly cigarette case on the counter top.
--An old, creaky staircase.
--A bathroom with hidden toilet paper.
--A green leprechaun in a cage (with a key!) on top of the television set.
--An old 8-track with working cartridges ("Annie" was our favorite).
--Homemade meatballs on the stove.
--An old-fashioned vacuum cleaner that didn't use electricity or batteries.
--Beautiful perfume dispensers on Nana's bureau.
And, the most magical of all, Nana's Bookcase.
Nana's Bookcase lived in the guest room with the first generation Nintendo, the guest bed, and the view of Central Ave. The magic started with my cousin Kim and myself. When visiting Nana and Pa, we would quickly kiss and hug the relatives and then race upstairs to the guest room. Against the left-side wall stood the bookcase. Antique and run-down, the bookcase stood about 5 feet tall and 3 feet wide, had a glass door, and housed a library of books with hard, neutral-colored covers. Kim and I would methodically take all of the books out of the shelf and line them up on the bed. We would spend hours arranging them, playing "school", and putting them back onto the bookshelf.
I'm not sure what was so captivating about the bookcase. The books were old, the pages musty. The words were too hard for us to understand. But there was something alluring about their mystery.
As Kim and I got older, we lost interest in the bookcase. But something magical happened. Our small cousins, MaryKathryn and Chrissy, discovered the bookcase for themselves. So, the four of us would play together. At this point, Kim and I were old enough to read, and we started to flip through the books ourselves. We noticed a curious phenomenon; there were doodles in all of the books. "Joe" and "Bob" and sports numbers and pictures of hockey sticks decorated the margins. We ran downstairs, excited, to show our parents. They told us stories of how as children, they would also play with the books in the bookcase. It was the first time I was able to imagine my father, and his siblings, as children. When you are a child, adults seem like they were born adults. It is often hard for a child to imagine his or her parents as little children; innocent, playful, full of curiosity and wonder.
98 Central Ave. was sold the winter of my senior year in high school, and shortly thereafter we unexpectedly lost our beloved Nana. I titled my college essay, "Nana's Bookcase", and wrote of how the bookcase symbolized all that Nana stood for. The strong family connection through the generations was made manifest by the bookcase.
After Nana passed away, the family decided that Nana's Bookcase should belong to me. My parents had it restored and even made a gold plaque engraved with "Nana's Bookcase". It has been sitting, unused, for the past 15 years.
I am currently in the process of adopting a little girl through foster care. I have her room set up, and in it is Nana's Bookcase, full of children's classics. "Anne of Green Gables", "The Secret Garden", and "A Little Princess" are among the titles waiting for her to discover. I hope that she finds magic in the bookcase. And I hope that as my cousins start families of their own, their children will come over and enjoy the magic that still lives on through the bookcase.
Our family is imperfect. But through it all, there is an undying loyalty and love for one another that cannot be broken. I am so excited and honored to introduce a child to the Conceison/Bova Clan. The new generation is beginning, and I can only hope that their childhoods include the magic, creativity, love, and imagination that we all shared as children.
xoxo
kara
