Dear House

                                                            

We handed over the keys yesterday and walked out the door for the very last time. Moments before, I stood in front of the house and read aloud my gesture at closure. Nothing can say everything, but this felt about right.

Dear House,

This is a thank you note. A thank you for the many years you were more than a house, and truly a home. 

When D. and I first saw you, we knew you were the one. I guess it was love at first sight! I remember standing at the top of the stairs and squeezing his hands, whispering so the real estate agent down stairs couldn’t hear me, “I really want to live here.”

This is the house-that-became-home into which we welcomed our first overnight guest, Aunt Rose, for whom we bought the trundle beds we still use. The house-that-became-home to which we brought our newborn children, now grown and flown. The house-that-became-home where we carved out spaces between pipes and windows to expand just enough to stay, but not so much to change the cozy clutch of your time-darkened wood and solid plaster walls. The house-that-became-home that embraced family and friends in countless gatherings of every sort – salons, election parties, family dinners, sleep-overs, working meetings, Christmas mornings, New Year’s Eves and change-your-point-of-view Easter egg hunts.

We’ve always known we were likely to be the last people to live in this house, but that doesn’t seem to be making your fate much easier for me right now. I know in my head that, like the dinosaurs dying so Bach could live, the end of your era makes room for something new that could not otherwise be. I’m pleased that you and the land are going to a good cause. But I’m sad — really, really sad — about the end.

We’ve taken a few bits and pieces – as Gramms might have said, we’ve taken tokens of our affection, not measures of it. But you’ll always live on in our hearts and our stories, a reminder that a place becomes special not because of the four walls or the squeaky floors or even the delightful lights, but from the love that is poured into it – and that pours out of it. Thank you for being a most wonderful receptacle. 

Love,  Lynn

Meditation on Mowing

I don’t remember the first time I mowed our yard, but it must have been sometime in the spring of 1988.

Today was maybe the last.

That’s hundreds of mows in the interim, all — with a few minor exceptions when I was very pregnant or otherwise indisposed — executed by yours truly and an assortment of clunky machines. I was glad to be rid of the gasoline-powered rig, pleased to finesse the power cord.

I can’t say it’s been a chore I’ve cherished, but there has always been something satisfying about the indisputably finished product. The sudden clean-shaven order that emerges from our slightly shabby fifth of an acre, coming right up next to respectable. I could point to the effort with satisfaction, knowing I wasn’t the only one who knew work had been done.

Not much else in my life has ever been like that, so I’ve always appreciated that aspect of mowing. Kind of like painting: immediate visible results, however time-limited.

But today might have been the last pass. We go to settlement in less than a week and while we’ll still be clearing out the house for a while yet, I might dodge the next mow bullet. We’ll see; it will depend on the rain.

So I tried to savor this mow, if such a thing is possible. To feel the engine’s churn, the singular scratch of cut grass on the back of my throat, the sun on my hatted head as I swept the drying blades from the slate.

I put some extra effort into the trimming and raked the curb clean. It felt good to honor the process, a little bit of respect to the place we’ve called home all these many mowing seasons.

Beginning of the Beginning, Beginning of the End

It worked! All the contractors did all the things — and now we have permits to prove it!

And so it begins … and begins to end.

Friday wallboard came in and the first walls went up. Suddenly it looks and feels more solid, maybe even a tiny bit real.

Saturday we took out the storm windows and put in the screens for the last time. I tried to focus on the details: which windows I knew would give me trouble; how the muntins hit the rails; the glint of wobbly glass; the smell of wet screens coming clean; the sounds of outside coming back in.

 

Suspended Animation

I think there is poetry in the sprinklers being what’s holding things up.

Sprinklers: a droplet spraying system we hope never to see in action. Droplets are holding us all up, why should renovations on the condo be any different?

The ceiling in a 9′ x 10′ space, once closet/storage/powder room/foyer and now to be a study, is inexplicably three different heights. So the sprinklers are at varying heights as well. And that can’t be. For weeks the whole project has been captive to their remedy. Which, it seems, involves our general contractor, the sprinkler subcontractor, the sprinkler system maintenance contractor, the property manager, the building engineer, the fire department — and us walking the halls on fire watch.

Fingers crossed for a droplet- and fire-free day on Tuesday!

 

Insult to Injury

Meet Big Mou’  the iconic, ironic guardian of my parents’ cabin pantry.  

Monday: Executive Order #55 (2020): Temporary Stay at Home Order shuttered many bricks and mortar stores, restricted gathering size, but still allowed some businesses to continue, including construction. The County would conduct building inspection by FaceTime.

Thursday: S. emails: the County maybe isn’t allowing for virtual inspection after all. He’s gone as far as he can go without it. His cleaning woman has tidied the worksite, washed the floors and wiped all the doorknobs. Not sure when anyone will be back.

Friday: As I walked into the kitchen this morning, D. greeted me with a kiss and, “Just to add insult to injury….” He’d found mouse droppings and a chewed tomato on the kitchen cutting board.

Still Life

Still Life: Totem of our times, the toilet paper sits atop the tank, unsure when next it will be called to task.

Studs are bared, lights dangle, pipes feel fresh air for the first in a long time.

I’ve been waiting for the edict: Stop work. Go home. Shelter in place.

For now, another day, maybe, the construction workers come and go in their booties, wiping door knobs behind them, keeping distance, paying rent.

~~~

Still Life: Clearly sensing I needed it, a friend sent me Pico Iyer’s TED Talk, The Art of Stillness. Such a lovely reminder to find ways to embrace the stillness descending around us. To feel its healing potential. To resist the addictive, roaring maw. A sort of soul jujutsu for the times.

~~~

Still Life: I’m still getting work done. The laundry still accumulates. The dishwasher still needs unloading, the piles sorting.

The phone still rings. We’re still talking to friends, fussing about colleagues, fuming about Others.

The sun still shines. Honestly, the birds seem more cheerful than usual.

Everything — and nothing — is the same. It’s all still life. 

Bad Plan

I thought: I’m staying in, I’ll pack and purge!

I thought: The closet under the basement stairs has been weighing on me. Goodness knows what lurks within. Great place to start.

I thought: It will make me feel better to accomplish something concrete in the face of so much that feels insurmountable…

I thought wrong.

With every box and bin I pulled from beneath the stairs, my heart sank a little further. I am in no shape this week to decide which of the kids’ treasures are expendable, or to judge whatever I’d saved of my own childhood, or from my parents and grandparents. Let alone let them go right now.

Bad plan. The stair closet will have to wait.

Signs of the Times

It seems my life is defined by signage these days. A new kind of paper chase. Colorful, but in so many ways just black and white and code all over.

In other news: condo renovation demolition began today. Signs of progress.

My Curious Eyes

For the last week and a half, I’ve been trying to be a full participant in Season 9 of My Curious Eyes, a creative community devoted to actually paying attention to the world around us. Each day, our #MCE maven Karen Ward sends an eloquent prompt, illuminating some theme on which we’re to focus our curious eyes and cameras in the course of the day.

As you might imagine, this is more easily done some days than others.

But every day it pulls me out my head and into the possibilities that surround me, even when I’m hunkered in.

Thrice the condo has caught my curious eyes:

DAY 5: SELF(ie)  I was all set to post the morning-light-morning-walk selfie (my true happy place), but then I discovered the multiple mirrored doors we’re removing make for a Fun House — and that was too good not to share. #ilovemetaphors 

DAY 6: FREESTYLE   Mrs. B died a year ago, at 92. Who was she? How representative of her are the bling and odd bits we find as we begin to make her place ours?

DAY 12: JOY  Eventually this will be our view every morning. I knew the opportunity to greet each sunrise would delight me, but I didn’t fully appreciate how much joy I think I will find in the wide expanse of sky, all day every day. #possibilities

 

Step, by Bureaucratic Step

By a vote of 8-3 (protest votes to any such project that doesn’t maximize density, “nothing against your lovely plans”), the Planning Commission approved recommendation of site plan amendments and rezoning to allow the sale of our house and redevelopment of the property to move forward. The proposals go before the County Board in two weeks.

It’s a weird thing to have such a deeply personal move play out in such a public forum, and one entirely beyond our own control.

“I suppose someone is still living in that house…” mused one Commissioner.

Yes. Yes, for now.