Ruminations on Home
I used to dream of buying Lucy Ricardo’s farm house in Connecticut.
Later, I dreamed of buying the Brady Bunch split level. As a kid, I‘d spend
hours pouring over the Sears catalog imagining the kitchen in which I’d
install Avocado Green—or perhaps, Harvest Gold—appliances.
In eleven years, we have battled contractors, mice,
squirrels, termites, and floods. Yet, I feel safe—at home—here, in a place whose rooms are decisively painted—let’s face
it, it takes commitment to paint rooms red or pea soup green or chartreuse—and
hung with non-mass-produced art including local artist and good friend Brenda Howell.
Every time I walk into the sun room, I can see my dad
cradling a beer, wrapped in lacy sunlight that had fought its way through the
Royal Purple Smoke tree’s tangle of leaves, “You know,” he said, “this is my
favorite room in your house.” This is the house our family gathered in for our
first Thanksgiving without Dad.
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| Brenda Howell from the Nest series |
I look forward to our nephews, Maxwell and Xavier, running
up and down the stairs shouting, and romping in the yard with our dogs, and one
day inheriting the house that has brought us so much joy; I hope they will love
this house as much as I do.
In the mornings, I wander through bright rooms, the sun’s
bounty piled at the windows like bullion. In the evening’s mauve light, we watch
TV in the library, redolent with the smell of leather and old paper, as dust
swirls in the breeze from the open window and we try not to notice the cobwebs
on the iron chandelier above our heads.
At night the trees sway against the house, whispering their
adult’s lullaby, and as I prepare to sleep, I must admit to myself that this
house, this work in progress, this gorgeous ruin, like a stately dowager in
hard times: crumbling and utterly charming; this fool’s folly, this money pit, has been everything I dreamed
of, and nothing I expected.
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