Keep it Secret, Keep it Safe.

I used to have Italian neighbours. We got on really great, the kids lived in the house behind us and their grandmother lived to our left. I think I called her Nona.

Me and my brother went to her house a lot. There was a big empty room with a rocking horse in it, much older than the one I preoccupied myself with in Please Mum, but just as fun. Her kitchen walls were green, and I used to play with her giant doily of a table cloth as she fed me biscotti. (Back then, I didn't know it was supposed to be hard).

I can't remember much else about her house, but it was the stuff outside of it that I miss anyway. Ceiling cross-hatched with with wood that still smelt like wood... flowers and vines (in Burnaby of all places)... and what looked like an old stove and cauldrons for flower pots. Stone and brick tiled the ground and it was just, an every day beautiful kind of place. I haven't been there in a while.

Every year we'd have this giant party for my dad's and Nona's son's restaurant. At night, nona's backyard would change into the bar, and there were wines and coffees, but I always went for those Chubby sodas and the sugar cubes. It'd be really dark because there was only the porchlight.

I hear a lot of people talking about secret places they have, whether it be their roof, their last vacation spot, or a space behind their bed where they just write all the time. That was one of mine, but I think I've found a new one. I've shown it to 2 people in the past 7 years that I've known about it, one of which doesn't even read this blog. :P I think secret places are important, even if they are just memories. I say go visit Nona's backyard.