Neverland

Up until I was about 4 or 5 years old, my sister and brother and I all slept in the same bedroom. That bedroom has always reminded me of the nursery in the Peter Pan stories. I don't remember how many beds there were in it at the time, but there was an old-fashioned dresser in between the beds. It was composed of a long narrow mirror in the center that reached almost to the floor, flanked by two shorter mirrors, and two sets of drawers that looked like built-in nightstands attached to either side, and a little bench (or maybe it was a dressing table) in the middle. It set in front of a large window that took up most of one wall. After hearing the story at school, I was convinced that one night that window was going to fly open and Peter Pan would fly in and all three of us would fly out with him.

My older sister, of course, was Wendy. My brother was John. I considered where I fit into this story. Since the only girls were Tinkerbell and Wendy, that left me to be Tinkerbell, and that made sense because I did have the most faith of us all and I was feisty like Tinkerbell. If anyone could believe we could fly, it was me.

I don't remember the color of our walls, but I do remember my uncles using an overhead projector to project bedtime stories onto them. It was like having a movie theater right in our bedroom. Like sleeping in a fairy land.

Just before he started school, my brother was moved out of the nursery and it became "the girl's room". I was upset. Where were they taking him? I know I must have made a fuss. My brother, although a year older, doesn't remember any of this, but I do. I remember one of my aunts (I don't know which one) was unusually patient with me and explained that he was a big boy now and he wasn't going far, just on the other side of the wall to sleep in the big boy's room. Whoever it was made me understand that it wasn't proper for him to continue sleeping with us. I looked around. None of the other big boys slept in this room so it all made sense to me.