Thursday, July 26, 2012

Home

We used to go for drives late at night. Before kids, before rising gas prices, before sleep deprivation was problematic - we used to go for drives. We wound around on back country roads in Central Texas. Armed with coffee and mix tapes, we whizzed through towns with names like Dime Box and Snook. Our entertainment was songs on the radio, counting dead armadillos, and conversations that meandered and turned back on themselves as much as the roads we traveled.

We made plans, we talked about movies I'd never seen but should have, we argued over music and made each other listen to our favorite songs and proclaim them the best ever. We met and married quickly, and while we knew the essential things about each other, we had a lot of getting to know each other to do. Those back roads are paved with countless stories and dreams that we mapped into the network of our lives together.


"One day I want to have a villa," he said. "With an atrium. Lots of skylights and a huge deck for grilling and eating outside."

"Definitely. Al fresco is the best-co," This is part of why he loves me. I say ridiculous things. "I want to have a room just for my creative stuff. A place where I have space to sit and sew or paint or make things and then places to put it all away when I'm done."

"That would be nice," he had been concerned when my boxes of journals and paints and fabric and odds and ends were moved into our tiny apartment a few months earlier. My obsession with Mod Podge was not something we had discussed before the wedding. You'd better not sit still, my dad had warned, you might get Mod-Podged.


"I want to have a place to entertain people. Where people can just drop in and we can eat together and just hang out."


"I want to have a good kitchen. Nothing fancy, just big enough and designed to really cook in."

"If and when we have kids, I want to design spaces for them that are all their own. To let them pick the colors and the themes and decorate their rooms however they want to."

"I want to have a yard and lots of trees. Space to garden and grow things, but also be close to an awesome city so we can walk to the library or to get coffee or dinner."



All those years ago, while we drank our gas station coffee out of styrofoam cups and drove long into the quiet Texas night, we thought we were just giving voice to wishes and dreams. We thought we wanted something impossible. We thought it would never actually be ours. At the time we lived in a dingy little apartment in a dingy little apartment complex in Bryan, Texas. It was a two bedroom box with a "one-butt" kitchen and ants in every room. We didn't notice.

It was extravagant because it had two bedrooms - we had a whole extra room for our desk and computer and all my assorted junk. Our brand new dishes fit just fine in the cupboards and our hand-me-down and thrift store furniture barely took up the space. We hung our posters and returned all of the fussy crystal and fine china that the old ladies had insisted on giving us for wedding presents. We stayed up late building a bookshelf for our newly combined libraries. We ate fast food and scrubbed floors and arranged and re-arranged furniture and cupboards. We were sweaty and tired and deliriously happy in that limbo time between the summer and the new semester, the vacation time from work. We were in our little planet of us, newly married, looking toward the future and finally home.

We have just completed our tenth move in fourteen years. We've gathered a few more things and people to ourselves in the intervening years. We've replaced the rickety, homemade bookshelf with a real one. We've long since lost the college futon that served as a couch. We've gained a thousand toys and books for small hands and little bright eyes. We still have our same dishes, less new now, but still much loved. Our library has swelled to the point where we no longer remember whose books are whose. They are just ours. We have moved this stuff so many times - into rental houses, old Victorians divided into apartments, high rises, crack neighborhoods, more dingy apartment complexes, my parents' upstairs, and condos. All of these places, we have called home, because home is where ever we are.

These past few weeks we have lain under the skylight in the living room and watched the clouds move across the moon and listened to the rain fall in our atrium. I have unloaded my knitting and sewing and writing and my Mod Podge into the cupboards that surround my built-in sewing table. We have had friends come by to help us move and wish us well. We have eaten on our back deck, straight from the grill to the picnic table. I have unpacked my same old dishes and sparse cooking implements in our light-filled kitchen with vaulted ceilings and a wall full of windows, a space to eat and wrap-around counters to work on. We have stayed up late painting bedrooms to the exacting specifications of monkeys with a vision and listening to them revel in their space - "It's so great, Mom. I couldn't even imagine it was this great. I want to stay here until I'm all grown up." We have planned our plantings for next year, tidied up the built-in planter boxes and then walked to the library and the hardware store for a break.

We have eaten fast food and stayed up way too late scrubbing floors and arranging, re-arranging furniture and cupboards. We are sweaty and tired and deliriously happy in that limbo time between the summer and the new school year, the vacation time from work. We are in our little planet of us, feeling like newlyweds, looking toward the future and finally home


18 comments:

  1. Oh TangledLou. It's the randomest things and words that speak to the randomest people. Out of everything you've ever written and everything I've ever loved here on this blog, this post is the one I will treasure the most and made me tear up. It feeds the hope inside that today, the wishes we give voice to will someday morph into a reality I couldn't have thought to wish for.

    I really wish and pray for the best for you guys in your new home. Blessings, blessings and more blessings.. may they head on over to your new address.

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    1. Aw, Larissa! You made me tear up a little bit. I'm glad my scribblings have a purpose sometimes. I have been in complete awe of the many ways we are so very blessed.

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  2. "I want to stay her until I'm all grown up." What a perfect sentiment for a new home.
    Along with Larissa, I wish you many blessings and much happiness. (And you can blog about your new home all you want. With the way you write, no one will complain.)

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    1. You are too sweet, Jewels! Thank you for the kind words and well-wishes. They really mean a lot.

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  3. Mod Podge...one more thing we have in common. This all is what can't be quantified about owning a home–the part that only speaks in poetry and in prose like yours, like a loose poem. It has nothing to do with numbers or papers or debts or cost vs. savings. It has to do with this. Welcome home. :)

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    1. I will Mod Podge your comments onto a frame or something for me to remember that I can write and make sense to people.

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  4. I love this! Like Larissa, it made me tear up a little, in that wonderful, hope-filled, good way. I loved giving my kids creative ruling in their own rooms. It made them start to like this old house they hated so much at first, they refused to unpack their toothbrushes.

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    1. Thanks, Michelle! The kids have really enjoyed "decorating" their rooms. It's important to have one's own space.

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  5. Wonderful. I'm so glad you all have found your perfect home.

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    1. Thank you, V. I can hardly believe it, actually. Except that you know, everywhere we've lived has been a perfect home for us at the time. We're pretty portable that way.

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  6. Congrats! We're heading into more grown-up decor soon for the boys, and I was going to handle it all on my own. You've inspired me to involve the troops. Beautiful as always!

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    1. Thank you! One caveat on the kids' rooms, though. They showed me what they had in mind and then I took it from there to make it more palatable and realistic. They are thrilled with the results and think that they picked everything out.

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  7. Firstly I now love your house as much as you do, the way you write and describe the feelings and the distant wishes made real.....where's my room ;-)

    Secondly, I never knew other people took night time drives just for the hell of it, I always loved Giggleswick and Side Bottom to drive through over here! Although I knew the other half quite well before we got together and we drank coke not coffee, we spent hours driving and talking, listing our top ten favourite films or name ten Tom Hanks films or like you designing our dream home. We are not in ours yet but we are home!

    As above, blessings in your new home. I hope your happiness lasts a lifetime.

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  8. Hey Lou! When you get a sec, can you email me at mostlymarianne@gmail.com? Quick question for you! Thanks!

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  9. Oh, I love this so much. Home. What a sweet, sweet word. May your new home be ever-filled with love, laughter, and bountiful blessings.

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  10. I know I'm late to the party, but couldn't be happier for you. How wonderful that you've been able to move your home into a house so perfect for all of you.

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Thanks for reading and taking the time to say hello!