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Home Alone

Home Alone

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The house is seldom empty these days, but it will be for more than a week, so I’ve been sitting in silence for the most of the day. It’s not that I don’t love my life and the people in it. It’s only that I need to recharge in quiet.

What I’m listening to now is the sighing of the wind and the chirping of the parakeets. A few minutes ago I had the Sunday talk shows on the radio, but that was producing indigestion, so I’m back to the natural sounds of birds and air.

I may take a cue from Copper and move with the sun. He starts out in the front of the house for the morning rays, then moves around to the back for the afternoon light. He usually finds a square of pure sunshine and lies down in it.

In about an hour the lowering rays will strike the living room couch in an oh-so-inviting way. It may prove too enticing to ignore.

Blank Slate

Blank Slate

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I’ve started off the new year with almost as much clutter as before — with one notable exception: I cleared off one counter in the kitchen. I banished the bread box, moved the canisters and corralled the papers. Which means I begin 2020 with one clean sweep of vintage Formica.

I’m not sure why I did this, but there must be a deep-seated need to begin the year with a blank slate, to clear the way for 12 more months of experiences … and stuff.

Nature abhors a vacuum, of course, especially in this house, and things are constantly piling up on the counter: newspapers, mail, glasses, crumbs. But so far nothing I can’t dispatch quickly to its intended spot or to the recycling bin.

This won’t last long, I know. The house in general is full to bursting. There’s a warren of boxes in the basement, and a vanity and bathtub in the garage … but here in my kitchen, at this very moment, there is a lovely open countertop. And I’m going to keep it that way as long as I can.

Choosing Fixtures

Choosing Fixtures

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A brief pause from holiday topics to discuss … bathroom fixtures. Shortly into the new year, we embark on the first major home improvement work this house has seen in almost a decade — and the first interior home improvement work in almost two!

It’s long overdue, this bathroom remodel, but it involves myriad decisions and realizations, learning about things like tub drains, grout color and tile permeability. Things I never think about but now, unfortunately, must.

The other day, while doing my stair-walk at work, I ruminated on the little metal placards that hold the floor number and how they’re attached to doors. And that made me realize how infrequently I think about how things are made. I slide along on the built surface of life, barely giving it a second thought. That is about to change.

Light the Lights

Light the Lights

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Every year the lights matter more. Every year I wait for them, for certain houses that I know will pull out all the stops. With them we shake our tiny fists at the darkness. With them, we remind ourselves that spring will come again.

One house I pass on the way to Metro drips with soft white icicle lights. The bevy of bulbs transform this simple two-story into a fairy cottage.  It’s the slant of the roof and the way the house is tucked into the trees that does it. I could imagine Hansel and Gretel wandering up, expecting it to be made of gingerbread and marzipan. How kind of the occupants to leave the lights on till morning so we early commuters can be enchanted too.

I wonder if people know how much their efforts gladden the souls of passers-by. In that way lights are a visual reminder of how kindness spreads — from one harried heart to another.

The Other Green Chair

The Other Green Chair

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When the children were young and misbehaved they were sent to the green chair. It’s a nice chair as chairs go, roomy, upholstered in leather (or some leather-like substance) and situated beside a window. True, it does sit in a corner — but it faces out not in.

It’s been many years since the green chair was used for time-outs, though sometimes I sit in it myself when I really, really need to finish writing an article.

But lately, there’s a new green chair in town. It’s a small, quaint, upholstered in green velvet, and curiously enough, sits right across the room from the original. It’s a corner chair with tufted armrests and a funny pie-wedge shape that would be uncomfortable to sit in even if it was refurbished. It’s here because it belonged to my mother’s side of the family and has meaning.

When we finally got it in the house, I was puzzled about where to put it, but when I found this corner I knew it was supposed to be there all along. You can sit there and look at the other green chair. Or you can look out the window — not for long, of course, because your back would start to ache. But during that time you can ponder what strange creatures we humans are.

Sentimental furniture: can’t live with it, can’t live without it.

Tissues

Tissues

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If I ever doubt I am my mother’s daughter, I need look no further than my pockets … or my purse … or the sleeves of a cardigan. For in all of those places, I am sure to find … tissues.

I was just downstairs washing a pair of Mom’s pants that I have decided to give away. I will snap a photo of them before doing so, a new practice I’ve been told works wonders in the quest to declutter. But before putting them in the washer, I checked the pockets — and there, of course, I found a Kleenex.

Mom kept them everywhere. Her pocketbooks were full of them and so were her bedclothes. It was probably the problematic sinuses that have come to plague her children as well, and the lung condition she suffered certainly didn’t help.

But to me the tissues are endearing — and I hope I never come to the end of them.

Stinkbug Season

Stinkbug Season

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They fly in from who-knows-where, these funny armored bugs — in from fields where they’ve been gorging themselves all summer, I guess. And predictably, on warm days late in the season, they congregate on our windows and doors and, if possible, inside the house, too.

A stinkbug announces itself with a whirring sound and, when disturbed, will emit a cloying aroma that smells a little like cilantro.

But in the old days, I knew they were around when I heard a certain kind of shriek, as this house full of girls reacted, I’m afraid to say, in a most gender-stereotyped way. One especially notable occasion happened late one night when a daughter pulled down her window shades only to find that a bunch of stinkbugs had nested there during the day.

Now the bugs are calmly scooped up and cast out when they’re found. Not without a shiver, though.

(Luckily, these critters are on the outside of the screen.)

Letting Go

Letting Go

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A number of suitcases have been piling up in the basement, suitcases lacking the kind of easy-rolling wheels or with other defects that leave them out of the take-along sweepstakes.

Two of these bags belonged to Mom and Dad. They’re older models, of course. And no one else wanted them when we were going through things a couple years ago. So I used them to pack up books and memorabilia that I was bringing back from Lexington — then, after emptying them, tucked them under the basement stairs, where they stayed for at least two years.

But the bags have recently been unearthed and deemed extraneous, so I just moved them up from the basement to the garage. Next step: the Purple Heart pickup.

They’re in good shape and will come in handy for someone else, I hope. But it’s hard to see them go. I tell myself that things don’t matter, that it’s the intangibles that count. But each time I get rid of something that was Mom and Dad’s, a little bit of them goes, too.

Battling Ants

Battling Ants

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For several months, we’ve been engaged in a valiant fight against tiny ants that have taken up residence in the kitchen. Several times they seem to have been vanquished — only to return a few days later with reinforcements.

I have no problem with ants as long as they stay outside. Let them have their ant hills, their cooperative societies, let them lug crumbs around on their little backs. But once they invade my house, I’m going after them.

The problem is, nothing seems to help — no vinegar, diatomaceous earth, no home remedy. Various over-the-counter poisons sideline the critters for a few days … then they come marching back — not two by two, as the song says, but just as resolutely.

I’m always a little loathe to call in the professionals, whose remedies, I fear, may be worse than the problem itself. But on Friday, I’m officially giving in.  This has evolved from a skirmish to a battle. By the end of the week, it will be a war.

(Hoping there’s not something like this under my house.)

Contemplative Tasks

Contemplative Tasks

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A walker in the suburbs spends a lot of time thinking. So does a writer in the suburbs (or the city, depending upon whether I’m working at home or at the office).

I think best, though, when I’m doing something else. And I was thinking the other day (see?!) about how certain tasks are perfect for contemplation.

This will come as no surprise to monks and nuns who pray ceaselessly whether they’re hoeing a field or baking a fruitcake. They’ve long since realized how much physical labor lends itself to thought and prayer.

Walking, of course, is one of the most contemplative occupations, which is a large part of why I do it. Others include weeding, mowing, sweeping and ironing.

Each of these deserves its own post (and some have them), but I’m focusing today on what they have in common, on the pulling and the stretching, the pounding and the smoothing — on all the repetitive motions that exercise the muscles so the mind can roam free.

(Once freed, a mind can go anywhere.)