Always a Place at the Table

Life is better upstairs.

I think a lot about place. I think about it in the physical context of both where you’re from and where you are.

Sometimes they’re one and the same.

It’s hard to be more where I’m from than where I am right now, tucked in a corner of what was my bedroom when I was growing up, in front of a stone chimney and under one of the sloping rooflines that define the upstairs space in my family’s Homestead house. My older sister had the other upstairs bedroom when we were both here, years ago, her room separated from mine by the upstairs landing and a small closet that we shared. I now use the entire upstairs as a bedroom suite and the closet, such as it is, is all mine, a luxury I had never considered but thoroughly enjoy.

I’m very comfortable here, in this space. I can work, I can think, I can relax — separately or all at once. It’s that kind of place. It makes me feel good. I miss it when I’m not here.

It’s a Homestead house so life, especially modern life, takes a little doing. I’m cool with open windows and box fans. I stay warm with heat from the fireplace (gas logs) downstairs. I don’t fully trust the electricity, especially upstairs. Electricity in a Homestead house was an afterthought as well as forward thinking — electrical wiring wasn’t originally part of the house designs but Eleanor Roosevelt insisted they be ready when the Tennessee Valley Authority brought power to the region.

I’m judicious with my use of electricity upstairs, always mindful of what’s plugged in, and where. I’m at peace with the limitations.

(I learned to live without power in Houston, after Hurricane Ike in 2008. Ike was a wind event for most of the Houston area and power lines were down all over the city and region. I started going to bed at dusk and getting up at dawn. I enjoyed living on nature’s time and was a little disappointed when the lights came back on.

(I was also there in February 2021, during Winter Storm Uri and the Texas electrical grid meltdown. That wasn’t nearly as much fun — it’s a lot harder to stay warm than to stay cool. I spent a collective 37 hours without power, including an initial 24-hour stretch before the public knew what was happening and the outside temperature below freezing.)

Electricity isn’t the only challenge. I call the upstairs my bedroom suite but there’s no bathroom attached — there’s the original, tiny full-bath downstairs that meets my needs but not much else. I miss the cast-iron tub but appreciate the phone-booth sized shower that replaced it. The  bathroom is poorly ventilated and neither heated nor cooled, and has a single outlet, in the light fixture. Again, my needs but barely.

I’m not young any more and I initially was going to use the larger room downstairs as my bedroom. But I finally decided that I was going to do the stairs as long as I’m able and in the end, upstairs was where I wanted to be.

I love the staircase and going up and down those stairs makes me happy. Always has. We played on those stairs as children and I still want to bump my way down on my bottom. The interior stairwell is one of the most original and beautiful parts of the house — the stain on the paneling is as brilliant as the day it was applied and the half-bannister at the foot of the stairs is a carpenter’s masterpiece.

Still, the best thing about the staircase are those 10 steps that lead me upstairs, into my domain, my world. I feel like I’m in my own brain when I’m up here.

I got back here a little ahead of schedule, a sort of pandemic-induced homecoming. The Cumberland Plateau and the Cumberland Homesteads have always saved me a place, and it’s the place I need to be right now.

rpdgraham@gmail.com