Weekly Gratitude List

No longer forward nor behind I look in hope or fear; But, grateful, take the
good I find, The best of now and here.~John Greenleaf Whittier~

I am thankful for my home that I love so much. This is one of my favorite spots. When my house was young this space was a porch, but it is now enclosed with heat and tall windows.


Tell me what you are thankful for today. Send me a comment.

Rooted In Love

I’m sitting at the dining room table, thinking about the long crack in one of its legs, the result of time, temperature changes and family history. A junk shop find from the 1930’s, this cherry wood piece of furniture was once the prized possession of newlyweds, strangers to me. It might have been a stretch purchase for the Depression Era couple, but I got it for a steal at four hundred dollars, (side table included).

“Value is so relative,” remarks the real estate agent who is sitting across the table from my husband, as she flips through pages of local house sale data. At the moment, there are reasons to sell, and reasons to stay. We’re pulled back and forth emotionally.

Just like the table, the house we’re considering leaving is old and cracked in secret places, bought for a song eight years ago from an elderly couple. Back then it was just a charming building with a lot of potential, a bit musty, decorated with life-sized 30 year old silk plants, and over-packed with antiques. The walls told a story then, as they do now, except the chapter is new. Over the course of eight years, we have breathed new life into its hand-carved rafters through hard work, and new episodes of our life together have unfolded under its roof. We’ve filled the rooms with the fresh energy of little children and family traditions. In the second floor hallway I’ve hung a famous print called Photo Synthesis by Jerry Uelsmann. It’s a picture of a dilapidated building with giant tree roots. In a sense, that represents my house, but not visually, (thank goodness). I think my family has strengthened these old roots.

We fall in love with this small Queen Anne Victorian, despite the fact that it stands adjacent to a 200 year old cemetery and when we move in as newlyweds, the walls are padded. Every space, except for the bathrooms, is covered in fabric stapled over snow-white batting. Our friends joke that we can film a Brady Bunch reunion movie in the kitchen, because it is ugly, orange vintage. Either that or we can open a retro-style insane asylum, I think, pressing on the cushioned walls. Pulling down a nasty asbestos drop ceiling in the dining room, remnants of cloth electric wires, packs of Lucky Strike cigarettes, horse hair, plaster chunks, and a solitary silver spoon rain down on my head. I pick the spoon up off the heap of garbage. To my treasure-finding delight, it's engraved. On it is written, “Mental Diseases.” I cringe, as if the padded walls and dead neighbors weren’t creepy enough.

Lying in bed a few nights later, I’m staring at the ceiling, an ancient gathering of elaborate yellowed silk folds tucked under a medallion, and crystal chandelier. “The bedroom is my little jewel box,” the previous owner told me at the closing. I’m having involuntary visions of geriatric love under that dangling light fixture, and I can’t sleep. Finally drifting off, I dream that the ceiling, in its dusty decay, is actually the inside of a coffin. Disturbed by this nightmare, I start frantically peeling down the fabric everywhere; I need to find the bare bones of the original building. This 2 a.m. whim marks the beginning of the transformation of this building into my home. It starts a new chapter in the life of this house, which began with a simple farmer named Lyman in 1901, and continues with me and my family. Stairs are stripped of paint, walls repaired and repainted, floors redone. Scrubbed clean and refreshed by years of hard work, the stagnant old house is ready to grow again. Three children give it new wear and tear, and a reason to create more space.

My life has changed over the past eight years, and the transformation of this house into our beloved home reflects that growth. Now it’s my old friend. I’ve dug into its past and I’ve grown to love it at present. We’re sitting at the dining room table considering leaving my old friend at one of the worst economic times possible. “The reality is, in this market, you will not get what your house is worth,” says the real estate agent. I agree. We turned this space into a home filled with our love and memories. That’s priceless.

Fences

The neighborhood where I play as a child is a typical Long Island suburb. Houses change colors like mood rings; the neighbor's car alarm is our equivalent of Big Ben. My father works an extra job pumping gas so we can move into the smallest cape on the block. My mother likes the school district.

I’m four years old when we pull into the driveway for the first time. I’m wearing my puffy orange coat with the synthetic fur hood. There is no fence separating the backyard from the front, which will soon change. Our steps echo in the empty house. Mom says every room smells like a dog. The attic space becomes our bedrooms. Mine is painted "happy, stay in your own bed at night" yellow. The kitchen has a "vintage" red refrigerator with a big gash in the front, and neighbors tell tales of an old lady who died standing at the stove, stirring a pot of soup. The neighborhood kids add some extra flair to the story. "It was a secret witch's brew," they whisper through holes in the fence. I don't like the house; I crinkle my nose and set my feet in the dirt near the stoop, refusing to go through the door. I want to go back to our apartment.

Mr. Carlo is the old man across the street. His garden is barricaded with chicken wire, off limits to the children of the neighborhood, but every so often our kickball ends up tangled in his tomato plants. Then there is hell to pay. On one such occasion, he takes a few of us into the basement of his yellow stucco house. On a high shelf is a garden snake suspended in a bag of liquid.

"Dis is whata happen to chil'ren who a go in a garden," he snickers, his bony finger waving angrily in the direction of the bag.

We run.

One day, mom has enough of Mr. Carlo. With the neighborhood kids standing beside me, I watch in horror as she storms through his gate, past his beloved garden, to knock crisply on the door. This is the same day he tells us it is okay to eat the mushrooms that grow on his lawn. We stand silent, imagining the confrontation taking place beyond his fence. Moments later, she comes through his gate, snapping it closed with vigor, and marching past us like Rosie the Riveter. Mr. Carlo never yells at us again.