Ledge Acres Part One
Our sprawling 1865 farmhouse on 25 acres was our home from 1960-1973
Rusty brought home a deer haunch.
Climbing the tall pine tree and sitting up at the top.
A great Christmas where the presents filled the living room. It was epic. I think everybody got skis. Looking in from outside the living room window into the Christmas tree environment there. And seeing the lights standing out in the deep snow and the warmth of our home. Nana putting on the tinsel one strand at a time. Ever so carefully. And then you show up and try to do it and she’d be like, no, you have to do it like this. It was beautiful the way she did it.
Nana’s grand mal epileptic seizure in the living room. And my mother telling me to go get a spoon, a wooden spoon. Just the sheer terror of watching that.
Peeking in on Jimmy Matsudo, our Japanese gardener, meditating in his room. I think he was just wearing shorts and had cones of incense on his knees. He was in the yoga position. He let them burn all the way down without flinching.
Jimmy Matsudo telling me if you hurt your leg to lay on your back and put your leg up in the air and shake it.
Playing on the cliffs out back and then falling. And when I landed, I saw a rock right next to my head, like a big rock. If I had landed a foot the other way, I’d probably be dead. Also knocked the wind out of myself and came running into the house sucking air.
My brother coming down to breakfast and walking around the kitchen table sporting “morning wood” and not caring whether anyone noticed.
Nana telling us, oh, you want to smoke? I’ll help you smoke. So we rolled cigars out of shopping bags and lit them. Boy, we never wanted to smoke again after that.
Nana, if you hurt her feelings, would give you the silent treatment for a few days. The sheer torture of that withholding.
