Tirza ~ May 21

 

This morning, as I placed a vase of outrageous peonies from the front garden on my kitchen table, I said to myself, I love my house.

And my house immediately answered - my house loves me.

It’s clearly a love affair.

I remember the first time we followed the realtor to see it, the third house that day.  We were busy talking about what we had seen, and we both stopped in midsentence to notice where we were. The curve in the road, the train trestle, who knows what it was that  stopped us from pondering what we had seen to wonder what we would be seeing.  

The house looked terrible. Not the outside, not the inside.  Not my taste. Musty and creaky, bad paint colors, and frankly depressing.

M. had walked outside first.  I was contemplating the bottle green wainscoating and the maroon wallpaper and the café curtains on the colonial.  Look outside, he said. I can fix anything inside.

I bought it, hoping that more space would save us from splitting up.  There was a huge hurricane the day we moved our things from the city, the tunnels were flooded, the moving van took 8 hours to get here, and we almost missed the closing. 

First night, so we could sleep without the smell of dog urine, we took out the shag rug in what seemed like the master bedroom, and threw it out the window.  First morning, as we ate our breakfast on the back deck, I told my boys, Jump! RUN! SCREAM!  No neighbors to stop them and to make me scold them endlessly to be quiet.  

The house became M.’s mission over the next few years, leaving all the responsibilities of the external world to me.

When we finally separated, I didn’t know if I could stay in this house alone.  There was always something that had to be fixed, and I hadn’t the faintest clue about the practical house things like how to approach a circuit breaker.  This had all been entirely M.’s domain.  I took a proverbial deep breath and decided to stay one more year, so my eleven-year-old would have something be constant in his life. Even the brother he adored was leaving for college.

First year alone, we needed a new roof. Second year, a new boiler. And gradually, I took over, finding people to help me with things that needed doing.

I had a painter paint the staircase, and after a day or two he casually asked me, do you know you have ghosts?  Oh? I said, not knowing if I believed in them.  Yes, there’s a couple in Nathaniel’s room.  And a woman in your room.

Well, I said, it was a boarding house after 1811. So maybe some boarders are still here.  They aren’t unhappy, he reported. They like you.

The house did take a liking to me, I could tell. As we got to know each other better, things began moving around.  A chair in one room wandered into another, and stayed there without asking. Surprising and perfect.

If I bought a small carpet or table at a flea market or auction perfect for a particular spot, when I brought it home, it invariably ended up somewhere entirely different, making itself at home. 

I think other forces are at work. We make good partners, my house and I.