An envisioning. 2018 on the cusp of winter with dusk starting to settle in on the outskirts of Akron, Ohio.
Oh to be here. A corner suite in the back of the Gloria Cooper apartments with an entire wall of windows. Artists’ studios it was built as. The artists having long departed for cheaper places where you can park your mattress on the floor and have parties with cheap bottles of Chianti with your friends singing out the window and never get a complaint. All right at the Gloria Cooper in the olden days, but it getting very chi-chi.
New people who can’t do more with oil paint than a paint-by-number kit but with enough money for four poster beds and mahogany dining room sets who think easels downstairs in the foyer are tacky, especially when you can have entire murals by The Master Of Light done up with glowing cottages and lampposts that will make a bigger impression when some donor comes to dinner.
Not having moved, what with being a sort of oldish at least lady whose days of making noise are gone.
No, quiet days spent playing hearts and gin rummy with the lady next door. Living on tuna fish salad sandwiches with the occasional pickle punctuated by getting dressed up every few months when the checks arrive and going downtown together for a steak and baked potato lunch.
But yet . . . only two rooms worth of things but not growing up in just a room . . . no, a neighborhood filled with Gothic Revival homes with pointy dormers that look like a they are smiling with every tooth done up in white curtains . . . parties to go to or to dream on but a memory in flood . . . the lady down the street with her Christmas open house and all the neighbors coming along . . . boys in suits from Best and Company and girls in Mary Janes, tights, and smocked Viyella Royal Stewart plaid dresses with with wide sashes taking turns whacking the piñata that hung from the light fixture in the hall until a final smack and candy raining down, more than enough for everyone to eat themselves sick . . .
16 inch Rainbow Donkey piñata. Tissue paper exterior. Sold by GIFTEXPRESS on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09NMNMVKN?ref_=cm_sw_r_cso_em_mwn_dp_F56E1PKN37QJ56NEYVT5