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Category: house

Empty Corner

Empty Corner

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The living room is larger today. Wing chairs are back in their usual places, flanking the grandfather clock. It’s easier to reach books on the far shelves, and plants can stretch and breathe. 

What’s missing is the Christmas tree, fragrant and bedazzled. The tree that blocked the bookshelves and required major furniture rearranging. The tree that bore the weight of glass globes, tin stars and ceramic angels with grace and dignity. 

This morning I moved toward the far corner of the living room to turn on the tree lights, as I have been every day for more than three weeks. I was ready once again to be bathed only in its reds, greens and blues. 

Then I remembered, the corner is empty, the tree is gone. This morning, I sit in its shadow.

Being Inside

Being Inside

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It is full-on winter now — temperature in the teens when I woke up. How right it feels, when the furnace hums and the clocks tick and the birds chirp, how right it feels for it to be cold outside. The snow falls and stays. The bare trees stand sentinel.

December was lovely but strange, warmer than some Octobers. Lawn care chores piled up around me. Bulb-planting blistered my palms. 

Now, being inside is not only expected, it is necessary. There is a kind of relief in that.

The Purse

The Purse

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Britain’s monarch, Queen Elizabeth, has been in power for almost seven decades. And for most every moment of that time she seems to have carried a purse on her arm.

It’s a funny thing to notice, but women notice other women’s purses. And I wonder about hers: Why should this woman, who can snap her fingers at any moment and have an attendant bring her whatever she desires, need a handbag on her arm wherever she goes—including in her own castle? What does she have in there? Her phone? Her hanky? The nuclear code?

Why does this matter? I’ve thought of it recently because I, too, have been carrying my purse around even while inside the house. I take it upstairs and down. Into the kitchen and into the office. Onto the deck and into the backyard.

There’s a reason for this, of course: it’s because my phone is in my purse. And it helps that I have a purse I can wear, cross-body style. None of that prim, crooked-elbow arrangement.

Still, I don’t like carrying a purse around the house, and I’d like to stop this habit in its tracks. But that will only happen, I’m afraid, when clothing designers start giving women what they’ve always given men: pockets.

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Inside Again

Inside Again

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The house this morning has the feel of Noah’s ark two days into the 40. Only it’s not animals seeking refuge this morning; it’s plants.

As temperatures plunged into the 20s, we brought in the ferns and the spider plant and the cactus. They are hunkered down here where temps are in the upper 60s, heading for a high of 70 once the furnace moves to its daytime setting. Because some of the plants are so large they must be moved in on little dollies, they will stay inside now till spring.

The moving of the plants is one of those autumnal rites of passage I try to put off as long as possible. Turning on the heat in the house is another one. On both accounts we’ve made it to November, which I can hardly complain about.

But I will add a wistful note, a plea to the weather gods. It’s nothing personal, nothing against the plants themselves. But I hope it won’t be long before they can be outside again.

Decoration Inflation

Decoration Inflation

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I heard it first at the dentist’s office a couple weeks ago. The assistant who was prepping me for a procedure lamented that it was almost October 1. “And you know what that means,” she said. “Next thing you know it’s Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas and New Years.” 

Of course, she’s right. And I probably feel it more than she does, too, being a decade or two older. I notice this holiday speed-up not only on television, where ads for holiday films fill the airwaves, but also in the neighborhood.

It’s not that people are lighting trees and plugging in inflatable Santas just yet. But I’ve noticed a steady “decoration inflation” the last couple of years, driven, I imagine, by what’s available to buy. Which means that a home without spider webs in the trees and smiling pumpkins on the lawn looks downright miserly.

At my house, it still looks like summer.: potted geraniums on the front stoop, roses in the backyard, a flowering hosta by the garage. So I have forgone the mums and ornamental cabbage. I haven’t even bought a pumpkin yet. Here the fall decor is only what nature supplies: turning leaves and the red berries of the dogwood tree. 

Culling

Culling

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Next to writing, walking and reading, decluttering has been high on my list of things to do since April 30. 

Let’s just say I didn’t exactly rush to begin what I’m sure will be a years-long and often excruciating exercise. 

Should I save all the Amazon Advantage order slips from when I was still packing off copies of my book to the behemoth every few weeks? That’s an easy one. Into the recycling bin with them.

I have also been known to save more than my share of articles ripped from daily newspapers. These range from obituaries of noteworthy individuals to reviews of interesting books, even if they were published in 2006. 

Far harder are the article folders. I kept one for every story I wrote as a freelancer. To banish every set of interview notes would be too much, so I’m tip-toeing into closure by culling the folders to the barest minimum. 

Probably the whole folder needs to go, but for now, I’m excited that this decluttering exercise emptied out more than half of a file drawer. 

Baby steps …

A Different Thursday

A Different Thursday

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For most of the summer, we’ve been watching our grandson, Isaiah, every Thursday. The little tyke and his mom head over here early in the morning, and Isaiah’s daddy picks him up in the afternoon. But starting this week, Isaiah has begun going to a family daycare provider, so it was quiet around here yesterday.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a babysitter-type person. Watching Isaiah (or granddaughter Bernadette) full-time are not jobs I’ve lobbied to have. Much as I adore my grandbabies, I know my strengths and weaknesses — and a daycare provider I’m not.

But I love to be around the babies, and watching them grow and change is a greater joy than I could have imagined. All of which is to say.that yesterday I missed the feel of a little head on my shoulder and of little arms around my neck, the softness of baby skin and the dearness of hands so plump that the wrist line looks like a bracelet.

I missed the devilish smile when Isaiah bangs the cabinet doors or opens up the crisper drawer, finds an apple and bites into it. Watching babies: so much of it is funny, so much of it is tedious, so much of it is tactile. So much of it is all of these at once. 

Before there were grandchildren I thought I remembered what it was like to have a baby in the house, But it turns out, I had forgotten. 

(Isaiah and friend plot their escape.)

Ashland Park

Ashland Park

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There are places I visit so often in my imagination that I need to recharge the memories as you would a battery. I did some recharging today when I strolled through Lexington’s Ashland Park neighborhood.

There was Woodland Park with its baseball diamonds and picnic tables, then my old place on Lafayette, the first of several former houses I would visit today (the others I drove by rather than walked past).

I ambled down South Hanover and Fincastle, letting my mind wander, fantasizing what it would be like to live in some of these places, the grand brick colonials, the charming round-doored tudors.  

Till I reached Ashland itself, the home of 19-century statesman Henry Clay, which stopped my reveries in their tracks. Ashland with its shaded walks and formal garden. Ashland with its historic pedigree and bountiful acreage. Even in fantasy, Ashland is out of my league. 

Space Relations

Space Relations

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Never my strong suit on standardized tests, what we used to call space relations is not one of those fusty academic subjects that never comes in handy later in life.  It’s an aptitude you can use! 

Right now, for instance, it would be nice to know if the two large (and growing) piles of stuff I’ve been collecting for the lake will fit in our two smallish sedans. One of these cars will have a kayak strapped on the top, or at least that’s the plan, so that must be taken into consideration, weight-wise. 

My record in these areas is dismal. I can’t even figure out how big a Tupperware I need for leftovers, often trying one too small before I finally hit it right. The difference in cubic feet between a dollop of green beans and the mountain of food, fans, towels and other essentials growing upstairs and down is, well, stunning. 

The hour of judgment is coming. I have a feeling it will also be the hour of jettisoning. 

Garden Bench

Garden Bench

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I’m writing this post from the far reaches of the backyard, a place I seldom sit but am sitting now because of a lovely new garden bench. 

The garden bench is a wondrous invention. Made of wood and surrounded by trees, it invites contemplation, pause, taking stock. It’s a place for reverie. 

From here the house is just part of the equation, silent and still. Its worn flooring and stained carpet are safely out of sight. 

The bench sits where I was thinking of putting my writer’s cabin, back when I was thinking I needed a writer’s cabin. 

Now I think I may have what I need: a series of places — my new upstairs office, this wooden bench, the hammock, the trampoline, the deck under the rose-covered pergola — and, most of all finally, some time.