Houses are a sickness
It has to be this house-buying thing, the paperwork, the memories of the life I once had. The last remaining pet that Mr. X and I shared is getting weak and thin. She'll be checking out soon, too, my final connection to youth and early love. How I could have been so sanguine about buying houses with that guy, how I could undertake such a permanent thing without a thought? And then I remember: those houses weren’t permanent at all, no matter how solid they appeared. We were in and out, removed some wallpaper, slapped up some paint, and then woosh! it was back to DC or bang! back to Ohio for him.
Houses are a sickness.
Here’s what I would like: to live in San Francisco. Or Brooklyn. Or back in the right neighborhood in DC. Or, since we’re going to be here, I’d like to move this wonderful house just a tad bit north, maybe closer to BART, closer to where the hills start to roll. Or maybe I just don’t want to grow up and be beholden to a particular space. I want it to all be permanently temporary.
Mr. X left Takoma Park within four months for Columbus and I was out of the house by the next summer. There was nothing permanent about it. So now I struggle with my ideas about the past and houses and though I know buying this house is the right thing to do on so many levels, it scares me.
I look forward to thinking -- and writing -- about something else.
From a prompt, "I paid for it." I'm still very distracted by house-thoughts and haven't been to another blog in weeks (with a few exceptions). Don't worry. I'll be back.
Top image: The back of the house.
Bottom image: Our front porch.
Tell your story walking
It was May and the sun was shining bright. A row of cars sat by the creek, stereos blasting as other people enjoyed the sun. Monkey Hill, a steep road paved in cobblestones, rose above the park. I took off my strappy sandles, so grown-up, by the old fountain. And then I stepped on a bee. As my foot swelled, I hopped the half mile home, dragged myself past the Brandywine Zoo, stopped briefly under the dramatic arches of the Washington Street Bridge. At home, I made a paste with baking soda to soothe away the sting.
I walked home from 213 the morning my mother and I had a fight and she told me to get out of the car, just get out. We were living in Maryland by then and it must have been early spring, because the ground was thawing, had gone from rock-hard to mud, yielding and thick. She couldn't back out of the driveway. Her tires made deep ditches in the mud, but the car stayed in place. We emptied bags of kitty litter underneath the rear wheels; I pushed against the hood while she revved the engine. In the end, we borrowed my grandfather's car, but I had already convinced myself that school was out of the question. We fought. I obnoxioused myself out of it pretty early, right after we made the turn onto 213 from Town Point. Still, it was about three and a half miles back to the Little House, past cornfields on a road with no real shoulder. I remember a couple of neighbors driving by and waving as I picked my way back home, walking in between the road and the gully.
What did I do when I got to the woods? The road there was dark and curvy and any semblance of a shoulder disappeared. Maybe my mother changed her mind and returned to pick me up. Or more likely I clung to the side of the road, walked against traffic. I kept on going.
I have a recurring dream, about once a month, where I must walk from Elkton to Hollywood Beach. I march past traffic, climb up and down the bridge over the C&D canal, stop by the small shopping center closest to home. In dreamland, the store where I used to work is still there, in expanded form, all florescent lights and earnest employees in dark blue cotton uniforms. No one there can help me. I walk out into the dusty afternoon, plodding across brown cornfields where the remains of last year's crop still poke out of the ground and the footing is uneven. At the edge of the woods I discover a path off the road. And that's where I get stuck. I run into D. or I am so scared that I just stop, or sometimes I don't want to walk forward. The trees reach into the sky and it's so quiet that I want to stay forever.
Until now I've never tied the dream to the morning my mother kicked me out of the car, the forgotten fight, the abandonment of those years again, again. It always seemed like a not-driving dream or a stress dream, but now I wonder if it all started in that walk during that terrible time. I wonder what it means, how it ties who I was then to who I am now, whether I should start to peek under the surface of its meaning.
From a writing prompt, a song this time, Tell Your Story Walking by Deb Talan (video above). I spoke to my mother after writing this and she told me that she thinks about our fight, me getting out of the car and walking home, often. She thinks a neighbor gave me a ride home. I think she's right.
Drunk on possibility
So. We may have an opportunity to buy the house we’re in. It’s a unique house, well-built and large, filled with light and interesting angles. Actually, it’s my favorite house out of all the houses I’ve lived in, and that includes the two I bought with my ex-husband when I was younger and more sanguine about committing to property. (And my family and I have lived here for three years, which is longer than I lived in either of those places). I’m not sure whether it will happen, but it’s more possible than not, and I’m thinking of all the things that need to be done, mainly minor. I’m thinking of how renting can be a relief sometimes, not having to shell out money for repainting or for broken water heaters or for figuring out why the plate glass window in the front leaks when it rains sideways.
But the opportunity to buy also makes me realize how temporary our lives have felt. We haven't been sure where in Berkeley we’d end up, whether we would move back to DC, or if it would be better to be in Southern California, where my husband grew up. We buy a house, we put down roots, we have some equity. We paint the walls, replace the gate, grow a fruit tree or two in the backyard.
We take on huge debt. We are forever grateful to the relative who is offering financial assistance. We sign the contract and the Neighbornator shows up with a pie, a bottle of champagne, a cup of sugar. An invitation to use the hot tub. With my newfound security, sense of place, I write a series of searing short stories. My first novel (literary fiction) is well-reviewed and sells better than anyone expects. Journalists interview me on the back deck (right outside my writing room, where the magic happens!). They listen intently for clues, take notes as I stare off into the middle distance, thinking, thinking. I turn out to be a brilliant interview, witty, urbane, deep.
Or, more likely, we slowly begin to feel at home, to really build a life. The house shows us its flaws and beauty and we share our insecurities with it. It listens to the fights, the discussions, watches as our son grows up and a series of animals come and go. Maybe we stay for five years. Maybe for twenty. But throughout, the house surrounds us, comforting, soothing. Home.
Image from nertzy.
This is why I haven't been writing much lately or visiting any blogs: I am highly distracted. And none of this may come to pass, I keep on reminding myself: don't get too attached, Jennifer.
Friends
Good things are going on.
Hopefully I'll be able to write about them
soon, or at least escape my distracted mind
for some other kind of writing here. In the
meantime, a picture for you, albeit a
slightly blurry one: Big Skully with his
friend Dress-Me Monkey. I think Big Skully
won the sword fight, though Dress-Me Monkey
doesn't seem to mind.
Thank you for all your helpful and warm
comments on my last post. I'm doing better at
the moment and have a plan in place to deal
with the sadness when it feels
overwhelming.
A tale of necessary sadness, in two acts
Act I
Something is going on with
me. I’m sleeping terribly, cry at nothing.
Last night at dinner my son asked for another
Dress Me Monkey story: “What else would Dress
Me Monkey do?” This is our cue to come up
with some fantastical new tale about how the
toy would spend the proceeds from treasure he
never manages to steal. I said the first
thing that came to my mind, that Dress Me
Monkey wishes he could go back in time to the
nights when he ate with his mother and father
and they told Dress Me Human stories. "His
parents are far away now, and Dress Me Monkey
misses those days. He would like to go back
for a meal or two."
The dinner had been a difficult one, with the
kid complaining about his food and telling me
how the refried beans on his homemade nachos
looked like dirt, like something worms would
eat. I'd spent a lot of the day fighting my
initial crabby responses to his normal kid
behavior. I was tired. My past has been
coming back and poking me lately, spilling
out, and meals are one of those difficult
times for me. So I came up with a Dress Me
Monkey story that fit my mood, inappropriate
though the story might have been.
"Why did Dress Me Monkey want to have dinner
with his parents again, like he was a little
monkey?" the boy asked.
“Because everybody wants that,” my husband
said and started to cry. The boy was
concerned and snuggled up close to his dad.
We explained that Daddy was crying partially
because he misses his mother, who has been
dead for twelve years, but that also
sometimes adults miss the past, the sweet
simplicity of the family table. Then it was
my turn to cry, because my childhood
mealtimes were mainly horrible. The emotional
tenor of my those dinners depended on my
mother's mood and the man she was dating. She
had only three boyfriends over the course of
my childhood, but each of them had their own
issues, would make me stand at the table or
wouldn't talk when I was there or would pull
me apart, show my every flaw. When the last
one, Kevin, came along I ended up eating
dinner alone most of the time.
So. I want my family meals to be happy. Full
of love. The food I prepare is part of that
love and I try hard not to force the boy to
eat things he doesn't like, which is why he
eats macaroni and cheese almost every night.
Last night the meal was something he has
eaten before, but it didn't appeal to him and
the whole situation got to me.
I know that his rejection of my food is not a
rejection of me, but sometimes I still have
that visceral reaction, that and "You have no
idea how good you have it, little boy." And I
get angry at myself for thinking such a
thing. He doesn't "need" to know that. He
needs to grow up secure and happy and loved,
without the burdens of my childhood thrust
upon him. But right now the past is spilling
out of me, surprising me with its emotional
abundance. It can be overwhelming.
Last night, as I was getting him to sleep, he
asked about our day. This rundown of our
daily activities is a bedtime ritual.
Sometimes I learn more about what happened at
school or we go deeper an earlier discussion.
When I got to the dinner portion of my
synopsis, I apologized for the weirdness of
it and asked if he had any questions. "Why
did you tell a sad Dress Me Monkey story?"
was the first.
The real answer was because I am sad right
now. I am processing something deep and
fetid, airing out emotions that don’t easily
surface. I’m not sure why it's happening and
while I don’t like the effects – waking up in
the middle of the night or too damn early,
occasionally scaring my child, being cranky
and sleepy all day – I think what I’m going
through is necessary. What I told him was
that when I was little mealtimes weren't
always happy times and I was feeling sad
about it during dinner. And then we moved on
to why Daddy cried at the dinner
table.
Act II
It happened again last
night, the two a.m. alarm clock. I woke up
sad, obsessed with an aborted friendship.
After a good cry -- quiet, intense -- into my
pillow, I went into the boy's room to read
and hopefully return to sleep. (He had
already migrated into our bed.) When sleep
finally snuck up on me, I had a complicated
dream. In it, my husband's family was
visiting (though, in typical dream style, an
old boyfriend of mine showed up, too, looking
very much like a middle-aged Eastern Shore
type, with a baseball cap, greying beard, and
a beer belly). It was a surprise visit. I
hadn't had a chance to clean and I was
ashamed at how the house looked and angry
with my husband for springing them on me.
My dream self went stomping off into the
night. Our oldest cat, Zoe, fifteen years old
now and a sack of bones, dotty, constantly
hungry, followed me. We wandered frenetic
city streets, joined the rush of humanity. In
one square, mimes performed acrobatic feats
and played with fire. The glow of a neon sign
drew me into a murky bar. The next thing I
remember, Zoe and I were walking home. A
rainstorm had blasted through the city and
scrubbed away the people, leaving behind damp
sidewalks and oil-slick puddles that
reflected the shimmer of streetlights. It was
spooky, the kind of emptiness where you
expect to hear an echo of footsteps behind
you. Zoe, frightened by a stray cat, fell
behind.
One minute I could see her, the next she was
gone. I screamed her name over and over
again. I used the dinnertime call:
Zo-Zo-Zo-Zo-Zo. And then I opened my eyes,
totally awake, feeling the responsibility,
feeling the loss.
But at least I was feeling something.
Image: Asher with Nick's
shadow. Zoe has asked not to be photographed
for the blog. She's an old-fashioned sort who
values her privacy, though her name
actually is
Zoe.
She also agreed
that this photo was the best fit for the
post.
Does it seem like my past is always spilling
out? Maybe here. This is different though,
like I'm working through something big. I
sometimes discount the effects of my
childhood and often think I should be over it
by now. But it's not so simple, is
it?
While my mind is on hold
Hopefully my brain will be fully functional tomorrow.
Bullets over Berkeley
We live in a tightly packed neighborhood in West Berkeley, with a house directly behind the back fence and other people’s yards and houses on either side. When was someone firing off a gun? Target practice seems unlikely, unless the shooter liked the idea of randomly hitting a house or killing a neighbor making breakfast or having a late-night snack. Maybe these were celebratory bullets, fired at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Day, or maybe something more sinister happened in our backyard long ago.
I wonder about what houses hold, memories and smells and the intensity of events long gone. Sometimes I walk into our son’s room, which was just an attic at some point – it’s right against the roof line and the ceiling angles, perfect for a kid’s room – and I smell old cigarette smoke. That stuff soaks into the walls, into the floorboards and rafters. You can never truly get rid of it. I picture an old guy up there, smoking and sweltering, listening to baseball on the radio or plopped in front of an ancient TV. Maybe a part of him is still there and he’s mystified by our setup, the Legos and stuffed animals, the piles of children’s books.
When my ex-husband was in his early twenties, he had an encounter with a ghost. He was visiting a friend’s house and was exploring the attic when the air was suddenly infused with the smell of pipe smoke. "I couldn't get down those steps fast enough," he told me years later. It was an overnight visit and as he slept he was visited by the house's previous owner, though X. described it as less of a visitation than being pestered by a lonely presence, like getting stuck next to a talkative guy on the train. When X. woke up, he knew the man's name, that he was a widower and a painter and that the man had spent many hours up in the attic smoking a pipe and mourning his dead wife. His friend's mother confirmed the man's name and widower status and said that she, too, had felt his presence.
I find a bullet and I want a story. I almost want a crime scene for the excitement of it, for the unexpected narrative, but I don’t want someone else’s real life pain to come out for my entertainment. I want to believe that everyone who has lived in our house has been happy. I want their happiness to fill me with joy or at the very least contentment. I don’t want to think of the pain of others who have come here before me soaking into the walls, into the dirt in the backyard where I will grow vegetables, cucumbers on the vine, juicy tomatoes, pumpkins that will be as heavy as toddlers by summer’s end.
I want us all to have the happy ending.
Image: Bullet in hand.
Comments, comments and other weirdness
And my colors are all off -- at least for the moment. My apologies for the look of the blog.
Let the volley of comments begin.
;)
And in the room locked up inside me
I remember what it was like to care about fashion and boys and what the other girls thought, all the other girls with their money and their bright sweaters in primary colors and their designer clothes. When you’re a teenager you think everyone else is better off than you, except for S. whose brother would beat her up or F. whose father didn't know he existed or N., who lied about her address, too, and had an alcoholic dad. My friends were the exceptions, but the rest of them, the money flowed like water from a tap and their parents, they might have been strict, but it was in good ways that showed they cared instead of being random like my mother. The other kids had stable parents who drove newer cars. They lived in the suburbs, not the middle of the city where the houses slammed against each other, where you knew everyone's secrets, could smell the neighbor's dinner burning.
It was a time when I joined the consumer world with its fashion and makeup and music to buy (Def Leppard morphed to Wham! and Duran Duran bled into the Dead Kennedys, the Circle Jerks, Echo and the Bunnymen) and then retreated from it. In the Little House I was stuck with the dull depression of being fifteen and separated from the world, first alone, then alone and pregnant, and then the survivor of both, still alone, and with life experiences that made me feel so, so old.
But there was beer to drink and a guy who bought it for me. He eventually came around more often, was there for real, for love. D. still lived at home, was the youngest of four in a tight family. They got together for big extended family dinners, would greet me with a hug, kiss my cheek when it was time to say goodbye. The womenfolk prepared delicious food and it always seemed like there were at least twenty people at the table, with toasts ("Proost!") and heated conversation and endless bottles of Grolsch.
I loved that family, their sheer number, their passion and personality, the safety net of so many people. In the photographs, however, I look small. Contained. A little scared, like I knew a secret that could destroy me.
Image: Me, late December 1984, in my grandfather's yard. This was before I moved to the Little House, but I still spent most weekends and school vacations visiting. I remember this day very well, the abnormally warm temperatures, the feeling of anticipation that D. might show up that night, that he actually did show. Ah, redemption, brief and sweet.
The original prompt was a photo. You can look at it here.
The post title is a line from a Yaz song that I listened to a lot in the Little House: In My Room.
B is for . . . bad influence
There’s nothing like picking up your son from preschool where many of the other, much smaller, kids are talking about “pwison,” knowing who exposed them to that grownup concept. The kid is the oldest there by almost a year and sometimes two, which is a big deal for the under four set. He spent his first year and a half at this place just watching, sitting on the bench and observing, so we (and, more importantly, the preschool director) decided it was a good idea for him to stay while other kids his age moved on. And it's been wonderful to see him change from the boy on the bench to the kid running around and having fun. He's ready now to play with kids his own age and we are looking forward to kindergarten in the fall.
But at the moment there's the weapon thing (swords and now guns, with a vengeance) and the prison thing, which can sometimes cause discord. And on Friday evening, when we were talking about war and soldiers (thanks, Looney Tunes – "Bunker Hill Bunny" and National Geographic – article with a picture of woman whose legs were blown off by a land mine in an issue with something innocuous, like dinosaur fossils on the cover), I decided to bring up the song “War” as sung by Frankie Goes to Hollywood on YouTube. For the music. But, oh – the footage, compelling black and white shots from WWII (and perhaps earlier) of soldiers with guns and grenades and that picture of dead bodies piled in a foxhole. I think he should start to get an idea of what it's all about, war, or at least that part of it is about death, and he seems to understand on the level he needs to now, so I don’t mind him seeing those fixed images so much. We talk about them, the weapons and the damage done. What I know is going to come back and bite me is the line he fixated on: “Who wants to die?”
Monday afternoon I’ll pick him up at preschool. He’ll be there in his cop hat/helmet, climbing a hay bale castle, screaming “Who wants to die” at the top of his lungs. The other kids, the two- and three-year-olds and four-year-olds, might be shouting it, too, to the best of their ability. If I’m lucky, he won’t start planting “land mines” there, like he did in the park last week, me trying to play along (wan smile, less enthusiasm) while also trying to explain how terrible land mines were.
“These are cartoon land mines, Mom,” he told me. We talk about it. He knows the difference. Anything with a trigger, full of explosive capability, is huge fun, as long as no one gets hurt.
Image: Army set up on our porch.
From a prompt: B is for . . .