It is mid-morning on a beautiful autumn day. My mother is doing something in the front room – “the hall” – of our 19th-century Vermont farmhouse. The world around me is bathed in a light amber haze. I am in “the den,” a room which, to someone looking at the house from the road, is to the left of the hall. Why we refer to it as a den is something that I don’t understand. Its floors are constructed of wide barn-boards, covered over with so many layers of paint that they are basically unrecognizable as wood. Judging by the various shades that can be seen through chips in the paint, this floor has been white, gray, green, red, brown, and maybe even orange at some point in the past. Its current color is a deep brown with a hint of red. Almost a maroon. The den, which is separated from the hall in front of me by a lovely dark-stained sliding wood door, and connected via an open doorway on my left to “the library,” is home to my mother’s sewing paraphernalia and arts supplies, many of which are scattered across the surface of a ping-pong table which dominates the room. The light fixture in the room is of the hanging variety. It resembles an inverted extra-terrestrial vehicle, often occupied by three or more deceased flies. Currently, that light is turned off; but the den is still brightly lit by the sun, which is streaming in through a large picture window on the front of the house. A strip of stained glass decorates the top of the window. I am wearing my overalls, feeling neither overly happy nor overly sad. Perhaps I feel a bit mischievous – I know where my mother is, but she seems to be unaware of my presence. There is good reason for this: I’m standing underneath the ping-pong table.
It is 1969 and I am three years old. This is the first clear memory of my life.