Well Spring of Memory: First Memories

The Music Box

               I am warm and drowsy.  There is a light blanket covering me.  I can see the railing and bars of the crib on my left.  It is dark in the room but I can see daylight through the curtains at the window at the end of the crib.   The window is open and high above the crib, is a narrow window with pale blue curtains blowing into the room.  On the corner of the dresser drawers at the end of the crib there is a music box and it is playing soft, tinkling music. 

               I have always known that memory but it wasn’t until I was in my mid-twenties that I recounted it to my mother.  She looked at me incredulously and declared I couldn’t possibly remember that.  She told me that the setting I described was the corner of the bedroom that I shared with my parents when I was less than a year old and we lived in the trailer that was provided as temporary housing for the WWII GI’s at the University of Minnesota.  At last I knew where the memory came from, I had always known it but had never consciously described it to anyone.

               There is an old photograph of my parents, newly married, ages 22 and 21 standing together in the sunshine with the trailer behind them.  My mom is looking up at my dad, from her 5 feet 4 inches to his 6 feet 4 inches, as he smiles down at her, obviously very much in love.  I can see the small windows in the trailer, the one that was our bedroom.  We moved from the trailer to the more spacious GI barracks before my first birthday.

               The music box was packed up and shipped with us to India where it was played for my younger siblings as they each arrived.  It was round, pink, enameled and had four little feet. I learned later that it played Brahm’s lullaby.  I wound it up and listened to it many times over the years.  I don’t know what become of the music box but I remember hearing it and knowing it meant love, rest and security.