Dreams

 

The way is long and winding and what seems unimportant now may turn out to be most memorable later on.

When I was twelve I spent long afternoons with Eliza B. Condell, the woman next door. She was in her nineties and had lived alone since 1899 when her fiancé died. Many of her things ended up in the Illinois State Museum, but to a lonely little new girl on the block she was just a sweet old neighbor with a house full of exotic things.

I played with her music box, a large, glass topped piece with metal bells, played by metal and ceramic birds, bees and butterflies. I had tea parties with a tiny tea seat made out of civil war coins and dressed paper dolls from the early Ziegfeld Follies

She loved to read and I remember walking between our two houses late at night just to get a glimpse of her, wrapped in a huge shawl, reading in her rocking chair by the window.

I had no idea she was famous, but I loved the stories she told about her brother, a world traveler who brought her things from China and other faraway places.

I was hungry for companionship and she filled me up with dreams.