The House That Built Me

I walked around our family home yesterday while everyone else was gone and said my good-byes. It'll go on the market next week, I think.

 

The front door with Mom's favorite flower.

 

 

Hi Jack. When we turn onto the street the house is on, Jack starts to bark. He knows. He is always so sad when he realizes there is no one inside. This photo is after he did a sweep of the house. He did find a tennis ball though, so it wasn't all for not.

 

 

I have memories of picking the tiny daffodils that grow in this rockery in the spring, inevitably putting my face and hand through spider webs as I reached through the bars to turn the water hose on, and lighting the railing up like a candy cane during Christmas time.

This is the clock that hung on the wall by the hallway forever. In the days before cell phones made us crazy to-the-minute timekeepers, our house never operated on a by the minute schedule. This clock never quite told the right time. Dad's alarm clock never did either. I also couldn't read the time on this until I was about 13. (I think it fell off the wall during the move, which accounts for the misshape.)

 

Every day my dad would leave for the bus stop before we left for school. As a kid, I would almost always watch him walk away through my bedroom window. I'd peer through the curtains, see him walking, and bang on the glass until he turned around. He would turn, wave, and keep walking. He repeated that exactly three times before disappearing beyond the mailboxes (across from that blue house.)

 

This is the rec room downstairs and it certainly didn't always look this nice. I fondly remember wood paneling and tan and black bricks on the wall. My mom had a giant yellow velvet rocking chair (talk about 70's!) that I would sit in most nights before dinner and watch Looney Tunes on a gigantic old fashioned television. It was partially the size and comfort of the chair that would invite me to curl up in the tiniest ball possible, and also the fact that the basement was SO creepy as a child. Especially alone.

 



The worst thing was if you had to use the restroom while playing downstairs. Heaven forbid you walk all the way up the stairs to use the regular bathroom up there. No, you ventured through the utility room and into Dad's bathroom/dungeon. This is the utility room and the monster furnace. Growing up, there was always, ALWAYS, a bucket of this special concoction that bleached my brother's baseball pants sitting in the corner here. The other moms at baseball were always so jealous of my brother's spotless pants. :)

 



 

My dad sat on the bench in the corner when my brother and I were outside. If I couldn't find Dad, he was sitting in that corner on the deck. When we were little, we rode our plastic tricycles in viciously fast circles on the lower portion. Mom and Dad put a gate on the deck when my brother took a sudden detour and rode his tricycle down the steps. :)

 

 

What are these things called? Arbors? Whatever it is, my cat got stuck on it all the time. I would laugh and laugh as Dad climbed up to fetch her. The Japanese Maple in the photo grew as much as we did. It was probably three feet tall when we moved in. Now it's about 11 or so.

 

Basketball sucks. I think I was destined to hate it because, as a tall kid you get the, "DO YOU PLAY BASKETBALL?" question. A lot. You get it a lot. That said, it was fun to play H.O.R.S.E. with my brother and dad down here. Our uncle put the hoop in as well as a big fort with a slide - the fort got torn down ages ago but hopefully the next family gets to enjoy the basketball hoop. We played a lot of other ball games but there was a real risk of losing the ball over the fence and into a sea of blackberry bushes. Ball recoveries were fun and treacherous expeditions.

 

 

Yes, I pushed my brother into a dog igloo and down these stairs. He responded years later by pushing me out of the cherry tree on the right. I bounced all the way down the stairs. Fond memories.

 

Speaking of the cherry tree. Before some contractor did a hack job on my poor tree, she was a thing of beauty. Big, feathery cherry blossoms looked like pale pink clouds in the spring, and man, I climbed that thing to the tip tops and would sit up there and feel totally invisible. I constantly had that orange bark on my clothes.

 

 

Spring and summer evenings, my brother and I would play outside until dark. I'm sure Mom was always watching out of some window because the second one of us got too loud, or started to argue or cry, she was out on the deck like a flash. When Dad got home, the glow of the lights inside would cast across the deck and onto the lawn, letting us know it was almost dinner time. Often times, the sound of a vacuum or the Mariner's baseball game would drift out of the back door.

 

 

I never thought my parents would sell this house, and it's hard. One of the hardest parts, which only animal people truly understand, is the fact that my cat is buried in the back yard. I am so conflicted - I feel like I should have her exhumed and cremated but I also want her left at peace. It's hard to realize she will be all alone there, in a stranger's backyard. I did scoop some of the dirt up after I put the flowers there. I'll put that in an urn, I think.

 

 

So there it is. Kind of thrown together, but it feels good to have it written down.