Like the circles that you find In the wallpaper of your mind...

So my sister who is an artist and a writer had an interesting phrase in her blog that I am going to explore further in this post. She was talking about how there were many phrases that were part of the wallpaper of her life. I also have life wallpaper but it is divided into different rooms: the wallpaper of my childhood, the wallpaper of my children's childhood, my current wallpaper.

I used to love wallpaper and have had it in all of my houses except the one I live in now. One reason I don't have any now is that I have those stupid textured walls which don't really look good with wallpaper on them. In addition, my love of wallpaper seems to have waned. Maybe it is because I have had to strip too much of it in my life (see previous post). Or, maybe it is because it is out of fashion. No, that couldn't be it because I refuse to follow fashion trends. ("Karen, don't be a slave to fashion" --name that obscure reference!) Anyway, I don't need wallpaper in my house because I have it in my mind.

The wallpaper of my childhood is vivid and hasn't faded with age. It probably should have, but it hasn't. It includes such items as Cowboy, my rocking/bouncing horse. I spent many hours on Cowboy singing and rocking. "Pony Boy" and "Buffalo Girls" were two of my favorite songs to sing while Cowboy and I rode through the wild west. He went to live at Aunt Lillie's store when he lost his bounce (and his tail because I sat on it instead of in the saddle when I got bigger) and then, when she closed her store, he lived in my garage until he completely fell apart and I had to take him to the dump. No matter, he is as peppy and fun as ever on the wallpaper.

Another thing on my childhood wallpaper is the metal headboard on the bed in the "girl's room" at Grandma Dena/Aunt Lillie's house. If you sat against it, it would bend in and then when you got up, it popped back out, making a sound that I will never forget. Can sounds be on wallpaper? In my childhood room with wallpaper they can. There was the hobnail pin-up lamp above the bed with the frilly white shade that I turned on for looking at picture books before going to sleep. And the flannel blankets on the bed with the crisply ironed clean-smelling sheets. (I guess smells are included as well.) All of these are on my wallpaper.

Then there are 3 shady trees down a dirt road near a farmhouse on the wallpaper. There are lambs without mothers who need to be fed with warm milk from giant Coke bottles with big black nipples on them. There are "Whees" (bumps in the road) on the way to Grandma's house. There is the smell of bacon and eggs, bread and pies, alfalfa and manure. The wallpaper is colorful, filled with quilts, fabrics, and bottled fruits and vegetables. Gardens of beautiful flowers lovingly cared for by grandparents fill the background.

There are also adventures on my childhood wallpaper. Family trips and moving to "exotic" places like Brentwood, CA and Andover, MA. There is a mansion with a swimming pool, beautiful grounds, an apartment over the multi-car garage, a laundry building, a pugoo in the drape, 2 huge German shepherds, and an electric gate across the entrance. There are tree-lined streets with a beautiful old church and cemetery at the end of the block.

My childhood wallpaper has only begun to be described but I shall have to move on to my young adulthood wallpaper in my next post. Stay tuned...