Porkchops and Crying and Not Knowing Which Way is North.
Their hair streaked back behind them in the wind; sun kissed and golden like so many of the farmers' fields in which wheat dances happily with every breeze and gale in this part of the country. They stood together as a unified force on top of one of the parking bumpers and spoke to each other in some clandestine and entirely invented language. I don't remember their faces but I remember thinking how good it was that they had each other. Their lives at four years old seemed already so problematic and difficult.
There is a great lie that we tell the young -- that at some point in adulthood you reach the place in which you have Everything Figured Out. In this place Life Makes Sense and there is a Clear Direction and Purpose.
--
The first room that I had to put together in this new place of ours was our study/office. Office seems like a misdirection because it connotes work being done -- I really mean the room in which I have my books and a comfy reading chair, and Dan has his gaming computer and comfy computer chair. We will most likely spend gobs of time in this room. I had to do this room first because it had been over a month (close to two) of my books being stacked up in boxes in a very sad and desolate storage unit. I have two stories to report to you about turning this room into our studious abode. The first is a ghost story, and the second is... well, maybe just a bit of advice that came as a timely reminder.
In order to really get into the ghost story, I need to give you some background about the house. This is a very old house in a very old historical area in one of the first cities in a very old state. It is beautiful. Outside, it looks like the brick version of the hobbit hole that Bilbo would have built if he couldn't find a hillside. Inside, there is polished woodwork everywhere you look. Leaded glass windows. Hardwood floors. Plaster crown moulding. Stone fireplaces. However, we bought the house from a very eccentric woman who owned it for 30 years and never lived a day in it. 30 years! Imagine it! Like a body that had been neglected for so long, all of the circulatory systems in the home needed an overhaul -- plumbing, electrical, etc. The story of our plumber is another post entirely (I wish we could clone him.) I digress... as we worked on the house (when I pulled up the carpet upstairs to discover more beautiful hardwood, I found that the carpet's underlayment was made of HORSEHAIR) I began to have an overwhelming sensation of joy -- not my own, but that some force was very happy that things were happening. Please bear with me, it's crazy, I know. Keep in mind that as a public school employee this is my summer vacation and as such I spent countless hours alone in the house (happily) working to my very persnickety heart's content. All of this alone time in the house led me to the belief/feeling (if I am crazy, so be it,) that there is a very benevolent spirit abiding here as well. My mother (definitely crazy) has confirmed the notion and has named our roommate Beatrice. According to mom, Beatrice is over the moon that the house is occupied now and she loves watching the neighbor children from the upstairs windows (I have seen her in the upstairs hallway; again, not crazy.)
I have circumnavigated perilously from the beginning of my story, but here we are again, at the study. The study is the very front room on the upstairs level and on Saturday evening I found myself working on a different room (the last to be done) on this level -- the bathroom. Dan was out having fun with his cousins and I took the opportunity to get more work done on the house. Specifically, I was painting the bathroom's walls. I have to listen to music as I work, and on that night I had been playing music via the computer speakers hooked up in the study. As such, on that night, I was going between the bathroom and study fairly regularly (is there a music app that doesn't require one to click through an ad?)
I need to give you one more aside about the study and I promise that's the last. I am very, very particular about shelving my books. I am a regular patron of the public library, so the books that have earned a spot on my private bookshelves are incredibly special to me and I display them as such. Each spine of each book is lined up in symmetry with the book next to it, at the front of the shelf. One should be able, at a glance, to easily see the volumes from which to choose.
On the night of my bathroom painting, I noticed that Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar was indented about an inch from the others. (Incidentally, The Bell Jar is one of my absolute favorites and the main character somewhat reminds me of a younger version of my ghost naming mother.) This placement was bizarre to me. The night prior I had spent plenty of time alphabetizing and stacking the books and I definitely hadn't disturbed any of the books in that general vicinity once they found their new home. When I first noticed the irregularity I had a wet paintbrush in hand and was only in the room to skip to the next song, so I made a mental note to straighten up my books at another time.
About fifteen minutes later there was another ad on my music app, so I returned to the study to help the music along. I glanced at my bookshelf. I stared at my bookshelf. The Bell Jar was back in place among its peers, spine perfectly lined up along the edge of the shelf. Beatrice, perhaps, is a reader.
I promised two stories! The second is less a story and more of a reminder. There has been a bifurcation of late, a cleaving of the heart, and I don't understand it. At any point in which there is a fissure, there is pain. Like the unknown pea at the very bottom mattress I brood about it, I dream about it, I agonize. Yesterday I pulled another favorite volume off of the shelf and opened its pages at random. It reminded me of the real goal to which I should aspire, as an adult -- the way to define a life worth living: "everything was beautiful and nothing hurt."
Perhaps a bit lofty, but worthwhile, nonetheless.
There is a great lie that we tell the young -- that at some point in adulthood you reach the place in which you have Everything Figured Out. In this place Life Makes Sense and there is a Clear Direction and Purpose.
--
The first room that I had to put together in this new place of ours was our study/office. Office seems like a misdirection because it connotes work being done -- I really mean the room in which I have my books and a comfy reading chair, and Dan has his gaming computer and comfy computer chair. We will most likely spend gobs of time in this room. I had to do this room first because it had been over a month (close to two) of my books being stacked up in boxes in a very sad and desolate storage unit. I have two stories to report to you about turning this room into our studious abode. The first is a ghost story, and the second is... well, maybe just a bit of advice that came as a timely reminder.
In order to really get into the ghost story, I need to give you some background about the house. This is a very old house in a very old historical area in one of the first cities in a very old state. It is beautiful. Outside, it looks like the brick version of the hobbit hole that Bilbo would have built if he couldn't find a hillside. Inside, there is polished woodwork everywhere you look. Leaded glass windows. Hardwood floors. Plaster crown moulding. Stone fireplaces. However, we bought the house from a very eccentric woman who owned it for 30 years and never lived a day in it. 30 years! Imagine it! Like a body that had been neglected for so long, all of the circulatory systems in the home needed an overhaul -- plumbing, electrical, etc. The story of our plumber is another post entirely (I wish we could clone him.) I digress... as we worked on the house (when I pulled up the carpet upstairs to discover more beautiful hardwood, I found that the carpet's underlayment was made of HORSEHAIR) I began to have an overwhelming sensation of joy -- not my own, but that some force was very happy that things were happening. Please bear with me, it's crazy, I know. Keep in mind that as a public school employee this is my summer vacation and as such I spent countless hours alone in the house (happily) working to my very persnickety heart's content. All of this alone time in the house led me to the belief/feeling (if I am crazy, so be it,) that there is a very benevolent spirit abiding here as well. My mother (definitely crazy) has confirmed the notion and has named our roommate Beatrice. According to mom, Beatrice is over the moon that the house is occupied now and she loves watching the neighbor children from the upstairs windows (I have seen her in the upstairs hallway; again, not crazy.)
I have circumnavigated perilously from the beginning of my story, but here we are again, at the study. The study is the very front room on the upstairs level and on Saturday evening I found myself working on a different room (the last to be done) on this level -- the bathroom. Dan was out having fun with his cousins and I took the opportunity to get more work done on the house. Specifically, I was painting the bathroom's walls. I have to listen to music as I work, and on that night I had been playing music via the computer speakers hooked up in the study. As such, on that night, I was going between the bathroom and study fairly regularly (is there a music app that doesn't require one to click through an ad?)
I need to give you one more aside about the study and I promise that's the last. I am very, very particular about shelving my books. I am a regular patron of the public library, so the books that have earned a spot on my private bookshelves are incredibly special to me and I display them as such. Each spine of each book is lined up in symmetry with the book next to it, at the front of the shelf. One should be able, at a glance, to easily see the volumes from which to choose.
On the night of my bathroom painting, I noticed that Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar was indented about an inch from the others. (Incidentally, The Bell Jar is one of my absolute favorites and the main character somewhat reminds me of a younger version of my ghost naming mother.) This placement was bizarre to me. The night prior I had spent plenty of time alphabetizing and stacking the books and I definitely hadn't disturbed any of the books in that general vicinity once they found their new home. When I first noticed the irregularity I had a wet paintbrush in hand and was only in the room to skip to the next song, so I made a mental note to straighten up my books at another time.
About fifteen minutes later there was another ad on my music app, so I returned to the study to help the music along. I glanced at my bookshelf. I stared at my bookshelf. The Bell Jar was back in place among its peers, spine perfectly lined up along the edge of the shelf. Beatrice, perhaps, is a reader.
I promised two stories! The second is less a story and more of a reminder. There has been a bifurcation of late, a cleaving of the heart, and I don't understand it. At any point in which there is a fissure, there is pain. Like the unknown pea at the very bottom mattress I brood about it, I dream about it, I agonize. Yesterday I pulled another favorite volume off of the shelf and opened its pages at random. It reminded me of the real goal to which I should aspire, as an adult -- the way to define a life worth living: "everything was beautiful and nothing hurt."
Perhaps a bit lofty, but worthwhile, nonetheless.
