the boys’ room

Sunday afternoon in The Boys’ Room, named after those who occupied it when my family drove down to stay with my grandparents for the weekend. Today, it’s uninhabited, and I’m here to help Grandma put the clean bedsheets back on. 

When she opens the door, it’s extremely warm. The western sun bakes The Boys’ Room, filtering through stripes of 30-year-old blinds. The bunk bed mattresses are stripped and ten bare pillows lie across the navy blue carpet. Grandma brings the sheets and comforters in, and we get to work, strategizing the most efficient way to apply the fitted sheets without losing our minds over slipping edges. I try to avoid climbing on top of the bunk bed by stretching my torso across the railing. Inevitably, I climb the final rungs of the ladder and receive pillows from Grandma. I arrange them exactly how I remember them, the same way they’ve been arranged for the past thirteen years.  

Grandma leaves the room to get more sheets for the bottom bunk, and I lay back onto the bed to stare up at the ceiling. I lift up my feet and press them flat against the paint splattered drywall, the product of Dad’s teenage redecoration. Holding my legs in place, I study the way my socks bunch up around my shoes. I can’t remember the last time I climbed up here.

When Grandma comes back, I express my nostalgia and slight fear of climbing down. I safely make it back down to earth and we continue with our project. “Remember when we used to play school in here?” she asks.

Before the bunk bed, there was a whiteboard. I would set up TV tray desks and folding chairs. Wielding a dangerously fragrant EXPO marker, I stood before the “class” and recited my most recent elementary school lessons. Before the whiteboard, there were Legos and Barbies, most of which were well-loved by my parent’s young hands before ours. Years before then, Grandpa covered the north wall with mirror fragments and panoramic photos of state park road trips. Even earlier, Dad splashed red and blue paint across the white walls. His work wasn’t complete without the floor-to-ceiling Looney Tunes mural and a dancing Calvin and Hobbes. These elements stood the test of time and remain staples of The Boys’ Room.

When you spend the night in The Boys’ Room, the windows rattle slightly when cars drive by. You can select a vhs to watch on the tv that produces an audible static. You can browse Dr. Seuss books and run your fingertips across yellowing pages. Those editions have been read across laps for longer than I’ve been alive. Pick up a trinket or a wooden puzzle and spend the evening pulling and pressing until it finally comes apart, only to realize it’s even more difficult to put back together again. There’s a stuffed giraffe on a high shelf. His name is Gerald.

The boys haven’t stayed in The Boys’ Room in a while. It’s rare that they come to visit at the same time, let alone spend the night. Grandma reads her emails at the desk under the window where the light pours in. She sets out her vacation outfits on the bed. If it’s the changing of the seasons, banker’s boxes full of holiday decorations line the perimeter of the room. Regardless of its evolving utility, we refer to this space as The Boys Room – a time capsule of adolescence.