Guest Blogger: Julie Brooks Barbour

View from Julie's grandparents' attic

The attic in the house where I grew up fascinated me, a treasure trove haunted by the past.   My grandmother's sewing machine sat under one of the windows, her cedar chest of old clothing waited back in the eaves, spilling  remnants of this woman I had never really known, herself a mountain woman who moved to south Georgia to teach school.

 I loved looking out the windows at the yard and tool house grown small and strange, as if images from a storybook.  The light that entered that dark repository always seemed to come from far off, to seem intrusive, as if darkness was the attic's natural state.

Julie Brooks Barbour, raised in the foothills of western North Carolina, has captured this ambiance of such an attic in all its mystery.  The photos, by the way, are from her grandparents' attic.  I can see that attic windows fascinated her as much as they still fascinate me.

My Grandparents’ Attic 

The only unfinished area in the house, the air held me close, 

pressing in, but I stayed, searching for what my grown cousins 

left behind: comic books, wood burning kits, marked pages

of schoolwork, scattered among boxes for safekeeping

or one day’s garbage, the only facts of their childhoods. 

They hit puberty before I was born. My father married late 

so I rummaged alone, needing to study a cousin’s 

handwritten vocabulary words, unfold game boards to trace 

the patterns of boredom, turn a geode over in my hands 

and stroke its spiny edges. The dark recesses of the attic 

peered from a far corner, accessible only by the ability 

to balance on plywood boards.  Lace curtains hung at the windows, 

gray with dust and dotted with dead flies, their cousins still trying 

to find a way out at the corners, greeting me each day 

with their small swarm. Those windows remained closed 

throughout the year, slanted summer sunlight adding to the heat. 

The few times she realized where I was headed, my grandmother 

begged me not to go up to that room, aware of its appearance, 

but I couldn’t stop. I had mysteries to solve: the rusted bed 

with its flattened, stained mattress, the tubes of old paints, 

stuffed animals boxed and waiting. Who was that room 

waiting for? My family told few stories. They related only 

childhood antics or what time dinner would be ready. 

The old secrets stayed hidden, washed away each time 

I cleaned the dust from my hands. 

Originally from Shelby,  Julie  received her MFA in Creative Writing at UNC-Greensboro. Her poems are forthcoming in Kestrel and Migrations: Poetry and Prose for Life's Transitions. She currently lives in Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan where she teaches at Lake Superior State University, and is founder and co-editor of the journal border crossing.  As a  sister alumna of UNC-G, I welcome her to my blog. Her poem carries me back to a place that continues to live in my memory.

Julie Brooks Barbour