Making Ourselves at Home
Auburn, AL
September 6, 2021
I started last week eating dinner in Ohio. We begin this one cleaning a kitchen in Alabama.
A month ago, we helped our son into his new apartment. Unbeknownst to us, we’d moved him into Spicoli’s van.
We didn’t meet his new roommates while we were there. And Alexander hadn’t seen much of them since.
He couldn’t.
The air was too thick. It was opaque as the Golden Gate at dawn and smelled like a Pink Floyd concert at dusk. To get from his room to the fridge, he needed to hack away haze like Stanley chopping his way thru the African brush.
In retrospect, this wasn’t a surprise. When we moved him into his upholstered bong, we found that one of the roommates left it looking like Woodstock the morning after the hippie hordes left the farm.
As soon as she saw it, my appalled wife went to work. After a couple days of shopping and scrubbing, she made the place neater than a snifter of fine Courvoisier.
Based on Alexander’s testimony, within a few days of his roommate’s return, it once again resembled a Pieter Bruegel painting.
Given the smell and sound that wafted through the small hours each day, he might as well have been living with Bob Marley and Keith Richards. It was miserable. A cup of coffee could get a better night’s sleep.
So we’re back in Auburn, once again helping Alexander move. We did so yesterday. He’s in the same apartment complex. This time, he’s ascending two flights, and will be on the top floor. We’ll tie up a few loose ends this morning, and return home this afternoon.
We met his new roommate, who seems like a great guy. He’s a Civil Engineering major, which is always an auspicious sign. It is a harbinger not only of high intelligence, keen insight, and deep thinking, but of a need to keep noise down to keep the grades up. We hope he will do the one so Alexander can do the other.
This is a long weekend, and we always like to see our son…even when we’re put to work. But our being here is hardly a respite from relaxation. Alexander’s aren’t the only living quarters commanding our attention this week.
Back in Atlanta, the problem with our house isn’t the air. It’s the water. Wednesday morning, we found some in the basement. This isn’t the first time it’s seeped thru the wall and under the carpet, but it’s now in a new place.
Four years ago, a corner of the basement flooded. A couple years later, we replaced the carpet…just before more water found a new way in. We identified and fixed a faulty French drain, and water has avoided that room since.
This week, it crept into the other ones. Our basement has three finished spaces. In two of them, to avoid the invader, carpets are overturned and furniture is pressed against the far wall like a convict dodging the prison spotlight. Fans and dehumidifiers dry the air and draw moisture from the room.
Outside, we’ll dig around, divert drainage, and plug the leak. New basins and pipes are being installed to protect a house that naturally attracts runoff by resting below the road.
To make room, an army of azaleas and a host of hostas will need to be martyred or moved. That’s too bad. They’ve been there longer than we have, gracing and guarding the front of the house. They grew with our sons, and their destruction or displacement marks the end of an era.
We came to our castle eighteen years ago. It was in its third decade. We were in our fourth. We brought with us a two year-old son, a six year-old dog, and plenty of naïveté.
The house needed some work, but nothing serious. It’s health was good. No invasive surgery was needed. The only incisions were cosmetic. A nip here, a tuck there. Updated kitchen, new bathrooms, fresh paint.
After the refined wardrobe and fresh make-up, the place was presentable, and it welcomed our second son. With age, it suffered the usual aches and injuries of advancing years and small children. But still, no serious injuries or major illness.
Creaking joints, occasional incontinence, and energy depletion brought house calls from carpenters, plumbers, and electricians. In recent years, face lifts and liposuction rejuvenated the basement, family room, lawn, and deck.
Not that the old house can’t get on our nerves. We even thought of leaving a few times. Our eyes occasionally wandered, seeking comfort in younger models with fewer wrinkles and better curb appeal. But they always seemed superficial, without character, and only wanted us for our money. They always reminded us how good we had it.
Our sons enjoyed and endured childhood as our house entered middle age. Marks on the wall recorded their advancing age and increasing height. Their rooms recorded and harbored their evolving interests, as clothes on the floor captured persistent habits.
They picked their seat at the table, their preferred spot on the couch, and their favorite games on the lawn. Pets came, went, and came again, joining our kids in transitioning our fickle house into a sturdy home.
Just last month, we again spruced up the family room. Nothing major. Just some decorative curtains, new pictures, and (still to come) updated upholstery. With the room refreshed, we were ready to take a breath, spare our wallet, and rest on our laurels.
It is at that moment that your lovely home reminds you it remains a temperamental house.
As I write, in a basement a hundred miles away, power fans are drying the underside of an overturned carpet, saturated pads are pulled from the floor, and drywall prepares to be ripped from the wall, as part of a thorough inspection for unrelenting mould.
Three large bookshelves that belonged to Rita’s father are already infected. They came to our house after we moved him from his last apartment, and into his final nursing home. After a moment of melancholy for these meaningful mementos, she decided they are destined for dumpster.
Those shelves held or harbored books, photos, and artifacts that simultaneously bring smiles to her face and tears to her eyes. They represent relics of her father, and her family, almost all of whom are gone. Fortunately, most of the heirlooms can be salvaged, and we’ll find ways to display or store what we save.
But even if they go, they’ll never leave. In a house, time marches on. In a home, the memories remain.
JD
