cognitive memories

the room is warm. ok the room is hot but not hot like the beaming sun hot but hot like fresh towels out of the dryer. the lamp casts a soft light over my left shoulder illuminating the entire room.  pictures line three walls signaling different childhoods, different eras, different motives.  the fourth wall isn't a wall at all, it's a window that peeks into hundreds of windows.  gold, lace curtains are the only things that keep the outside from coming in.  in the corner diagonally to my right, there are rare plants that demand attention and nurturing.  they should be called 'children.'  the white oleander (which also happens to be the name of one of my favorite movies) is a poisonous wonder who quiets herself during the winter months and then blooms miraculously under the spring sun.  i wait for its arrival every year always wondering when i will be brave enough to cut into its stem and watch its poisonous milk spill but i'm pretty sure my mother will kill me before the plant does.  the center table that has been pushed to the side to support my daughter's wild imagination, has frames of mostly group pictures, groups split up into generations.  black and white photos of my mother, grandmother, aunts and uncles dressed in their sunday best praising their God on saturday.  the table top is made of mirror so essentially, these reflections of the past are also reflections of the present.  the two side tables, designed the same way, have pictures of this generation's children, my cousins, all younger than me with the exception of one.  children who resemble one another so much so that we look like siblings instead. but there is one picture that speaks to the room.  it is in the middle of the west wall.  the frame is gold and detailed with an intricate design.  the girl in the picture is young, wearing white fathers draped across her chest, like movie stars in the fifties.  she barely has on any makeup and she's smiling like she loves this house and this room.  she's smiling like she enjoys the conversations that go on here.  she's smiling as if she's never cried in this house.  she is quite beautiful in the picture, an elegant transformation from the bundle of joy with full lips  and long, thick hair that surround the room from when she was two months old to seventeen years old.  it is the last picture she's given to this house and the reason she's smiling is not because she enjoyed her stay here, but rather because she's glad that it's over.