Caked Into the Walls
I found the house that became my home on a walk. The ranch-style brick looked like an orphaned hacienda beyond the band of blackjack oaks that separated it from the street. Through the mysterious curtain of branches and leaves, a siren song wafted. The friend I was walking with said the house was empty. Nobody had lived there for quite some time.
“We should go look in the windows,” I said. Ever enamored by hidden potential, my heart raced at the thought of what could be.
A quarter-wall of brick, bearing an entrance but not a gate, surrounded an unkempt courtyard that sanctioned off the house from the yard. The double front doors were tucked inside it, flanked by floor-to-ceiling plate glass windows, some partially clouded over due to broken seals. I cupped my eyes against a clear one and saw through to the back yard. The bones took my breath away.
It was everything I’d dreamed of but not been able to see—a place that had room to expand and contort, the sort of place where a life could fit.
Thirty-five years later, it is a part of me.
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My husband and I bought the house on the street named for what it looks like in the fall, despite the chipped Spanish tile in the entry, the orange linoleum kitchen and the squirrels who had claimed the fireplace as their own. At the snail’s pace that two high school teachers’ salaries allowed, we tackled projects one by one, painstakingly transforming the neglected structure into a place where we could comfortably live. From there it grew with us. It swelled to hold our babies and morphed to fit the vacillations of my taste. We would rehab it section by section, then we would ripen and rehab it over again. Our home, like the family who loves it, remains a work in progress most of the time.
I appreciate new houses. Walls without cracks, doors that don’t stick, floors that don’t make things with four legs tilt. And though I do have great affection for an outlet where I need it, I can’t imagine not having something begging to be fixed. An old house needs a keeper. I crave a reason to tinker. This place is the real-life Thelma to my real-life Louise. It knows me.
Most days (despite the shower that has currently sprung a leak) I can’t imagine not getting to live here. From my see-through living room, to the spots of exposed brick, to the bank of windows added to the kitchen during renovation number three, our house is a reflection of me becoming me. It’s unpredictable and imperfect-- lacking in seamless flooring, displaying way too many family photos and without a box to check if you tried to define its style. But it holds all of me. The parts I shudder at as well as the pieces that make me quietly proud are caked into the walls. The story of my life is here.
In the center of our home is a bank of cabinets and drawers—the only piece of the entire place that hasn’t been amended over time. They represent an open loop that I’m not eager to close. Like Navajo weavers’ tradition of a loomed-in spirit line, the needy sea of storage is a flaw that’s left with purpose. A means of keeping a door ajar to continual growth.
The places we call home don’t necessarily include the address where we lay our head. Home can be a hiking trail or a church pew or another human being, regardless of geographical coordinates. But a house that crosses the invisible line morphing into a home is a double bonus. It’s both where you get to go and where you get to be.