My Grandma’s Rocking Chair

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I loved going to my grandma’s house during the summer. It was sited in the entrance of a long forgotten road that led to an analogous town. The house itself was not an outstanding building, it had its years, and it was made of adobe, very rustic. What captivated me were the smells, the sensations, the secrecy all around. Every year I went, everything was at the same time familiar and new to me.  There was not much to do but I was always busy. I liked feeding the hens, climbing the damask tree or the vine, and searching ancient treasures in every nook and cranny. I changed every time I went there; the country side made of me a different child than that that lived in the city. Simple everyday things fascinated me. I remember gazing at my grandmother while she sat in her rocking chair to knit. Sometimes she would sit there for an hour and knit a whole sleeve, drawing charming patterns I would not understand. It was usually at 18:30 that she stood up and prepared something for me and my siblings to eat. However, I would not go after her all at once, for it was when she stood up that I witnessed what no one else ever did. My grandma’s rocking chair started moving to and fro in a steady motion. When the movement began fainting, to my amazement, it would begin again and more intense than before. If someone came, I’d remove my eyes away from the chair only to find, when I set my eyes on it again that it had stopped moving. Each afternoon I sat on the floor waiting for my grandmother to go to the kitchen so I could start the scrutiny of the peculiar phenomenon. Each summer I would do the same. Each summer till my grandmother passed away. When it happened that, my mother decided not to go to my grandmother’s house any longer.

Many years have elapsed since then. I can but recollect the smells, the sensations, and the secrecies, my secret. The rocking chair is at home now, in the parlor. Every now and then, at night, I can hear the creaking sound of the old wood of the chair, and I know my grandmother’s there, knitting beautiful patterns. It is my secret.