A Light Musing

By Barbara Bush

It surprised me how quickly I felt at home — having been blown about the past few years looking for a place to land … with an ocean.

No sign of the expected moldy ceiling tiles, water stained walls, or damaged wallpaper — except for that one place where the glue had finally failed the pink seashell paper curled up at one corner.

And other places, the dark wall paneling and so many little nook and cranny shelves of varying depths, rang of the 1950s. That depression crowd of adults — never assume there will be furniture, and plan to hide and store everything in the walls.  Flat glass tiles flush and trimmed in the ceiling with the light bulbs recessed above them. They are the shades of pieces of my childhood.

This building used to be a motel. A one level, 7-room, ocean view motel on a bluff above a beach. I have seen a photo with the original hotel sign, and want a copy to honor its history.

The outside of this building is destroyer grey, a color peculiar to the Navy and Marines. The man who sold me my part of this building told me that he had been in the merchant marine. Therefore, we are camouflaged, invisible, and safely perched on our bluff.

We have a view that reaches the horizon and spans from lighthouse to lighthouse to watch for invaders. So far even the freighters are too far away for serious observation, but I monitor the fishing fleet for any sign of digression.

And so here I am … a 1950s Marine brat who spent most of her early years somewhere near the Pacific ocean living on military bases now living in a military grey 1950s former motel that looks broadly out over the crashing waves.  I am unsurprisingly at home.

… Once upon a time there was a fairy princess who was adopted by a wonderful town in Colorado.