Sunday, May 27, 2007

Random Memory...

My lease is up on June 30th. After that, I will be living with a young woman who was also hired at UNC hospital, having just graduated from nursing school. We will be looking at different places on Wednesday, and it's my job--since I'm already in the area--to set up appointments at different places to investigate.
While searching for housing possibilities, thoughts have been coming to me regarding single-bathroom homes. There are plenty of 2- and 3-BR homes up for rent now that each have one full bathroom. That's well and good for a family, I always think, but my roommate and I would each like our own bathroom. And although this is more her preference than mine, I don't mind being responsible only for my own bathroom's cleaniness. One thing that makes my skin crawl is an icky bathroom....

So during these musings and hunts for 2-BR, 2-Bath rentals, a random memory came to mind, of a framed embroidered poem in my grandparents' bathroom, which I remember staring at as a child:

WHO WAITS OUTSIDE THE DOOR
ONE MAY NEVER KNOW
SO TARRY NOT MY FRIEND
HE TOO MAY HAVE TO GO

Not fully versed in all English vocabulary at "that" age (whatever age it was!), and having no punctuation to guide me, I remember time after time, reading and re-reading that wall hanging, trying to decipher what it meant.

My primary difficulty, given the names of all of my father's siblings, was figuring out who the heck Tarry was.... and after that, why he was "not my friend"...

2 comments:

nutmeg said...

Those were my EXACT thoughts growing up!

In fact, I would be sitting on the pot for much longer than necessary, trying to decipher those words... kind of had the opposite effect of what was intended, eh?

(And I'm sure, being the *saintly* older sis that I was, I made fun of you for NOT knowing what it meant... after I had finally figured it out)

;)

Sephora said...

Actually, I doubt I ever divulged my persistent puzzlement about the bathroom saying, so you're safe there! =)
Funny, isn't it, how you can remember something verbatim like that, just from having turned it over so many times in your mind?