I can jump off the 10th stair and land on my feet in my grandpa’s basement. You may not know this, but that’s a pretty big deal. It’s nothing compared to the earlier feats of my older cousins who invented the game, but I’m all about personal bests. We owe that game, strangely enough, to the fact that my grandma was sick for so long. As she became less steady on her feet, my grandpa had hand-rails installed on either side of the stairs so she could hold on with both hands. And it was important to make it to the basement—that’s where anything important happens in our family.
It’s where I lay sprawled out at my grandma’s feet, going through the Toys-R-Us catalog and circling everything I dreamed of having, making sure not to get any marker on the brown, shag carpet. It’s where I was allowed to listen in on grown-up conversations, lying on my back, staring up at the picture of Bobby and Jack looking ready to change the world. I was pretty sure they were members of our family, but I heard that they’d died a long time ago. I don’t remember what it was like when I discovered they were Kennedys, but I can’t imagine I was very pleased.
But I digress—the basement steps. My cousins and I would grab on to the handrails, inching forward until we were precariously perched on our tiptoes and then swing our bodies feet first to land with a thud (some more painful than others) on that same brown carpet we all knew and loved. If you did it right, it felt like flying. What lay at the bottom of the steps was worth the sometimes painful trip. The laundry room was on the left, with a refrigerator that was fair game for any of us. There was the bathroom, where we’d all brushed our teeth at every sleepover we were lucky enough to have at their house. And then there was the room with the oversized steam furnace, scary as hell (and as a family of good Catholics, that was pretty scary) but exciting when grandma would ask us to pull chairs out from behind it for Thanksgiving and Christmas, when the house seemed to burst at the seams with arguments, mashed potatoes and stories of mishaps from years before.
On the right was Grandma’s chair—good for both Twizzlers Nibs and a hug. Grandpa’s exercise bike was down there too, which taught us that only adults can ride bikes that don’t go anywhere. And there were the couches that unfolded and squished in all the right places and were probably supported by the years of Christmas wrapping paper I’d stuffed beneath the pillows. There was the TV, where I watched cooking shows with an extended family of picky eaters and learned that things could look good, but probably taste awful. My cousins introduced me to my favorite childhood movies which are now viewed with general disregard for age appropriateness. I laughed at both Edward Scissorhands and Tommy Boy and quoted each religiously. I probably traumatized my mother, but began to understand what it is to come into your own and become part of your family.
I don’t spend as much time in that basement as I used to. My grandma has left that basement for what I like to think is an infinitely better one (I hear they’ve got a big screen), and Twizzlers Nibs inspire a tug in my chest I’ve never been able to fully explain. I watch Tommy Boy in my dorm room and circle classes I want next semester instead of things I want from the Toys-R-Us catalog. We have new additions (adults and children) to the strange brood, all of whom define a new sort of family for me which I love and miss when I’m away.
My little cousins have the sleepovers now and I guess this is the part where I turn into one of the grown-ups in the conversations, not just a lucky kid who gets to listen in. But there’s still this part of me that hesitates on the way down to that basement and wonders if I could make it. I think for a little longer than is appropriate about whether my tuck-and-roll reaction is up to par, check to see if anyone’s looking and hold on to both handrails. This is who I am, not just who I was. I may be a strange bird, as I’m often reminded, but this is the place where I learned I could fly.
