After the storm the streets smelled like Christmas with all the pine needles down. There was a house for sale so it was empty and they kept all the lights on all the time. It looked sad like that, exposed and lonely. The lake road curled around to the horse farms and along this section were the tallest trees, my favorite part of the neighborhood. We’d been here for 15 years and it would be hard to one day leave.
And yet I often fantasized about starting a new life somewhere else. It wasn’t the new place as much as the thought of a new start. To think we had many lives in us like that, the capacity to go new directions. I watched Dawn’s parents grow old in their house and imagined us doing the same. Maybe moving out would help forestall that. Regardless, we’re all going to get carried out of somewhere or leave of our own volition.
There’s also our wanting to fulfill unmet life wishes, like Dawn and her covered porch or me and my woods. Our house was perfect in so many ways, we were splitting hairs. The longer we stayed there the more I loved it and never wanted to leave. We put down roots. Like the tall trees around us, ours didn’t go deep as much as they did wide, interlaced with others and their roots.
After we moved out of our first house I went back a few times to have a look from the street, in my car. A couple times I parked and walked by trying to look nonchalant but really scoping it out. Once I saw the new owners and said hi and they invited me in.
And what a trip that was going back to our old life for a few minutes, as reimagined through someone else (maybe like meeting an ex’s new lover). Roaming the rooms where we once lived and the flood of memories coming back, how we attach to physical spaces. I tried not to dwell on it and hurried out. They were very kind.
No, this time we would stay: make improvements over time, keep working on the yard. As Charlotte eased further into her last year of high school we all imagined her moving out and Dawn and I becoming empty nesters. You could mourn for the times we had or start thinking about the new ones to come. We’d be doing both.
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Categories: Creative Nonfiction, Memoir
Bill Pearse 
I believe that finding a balance between mourning what’s passed and embracing excitement for what’s to come is healthy and wise.
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Amen to that brother and well said!
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An old man walking nonchalantly past my house opposite Albert Park Lake (in the eighties) told me he’d lived there after the war. I invited him in and he described the set up of the boarding house it had been in the fifties. I enjoyed his short visit.
When I refinished the fireplaces, I found a rent receipt behind one of the surrounds. It meant a lot more to me, knowing some of the history of the place.
I’m sure your house’s new owner enjoyed your visit, Bill.
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Those remnants of former owners can be fascinating! That old house we lived in was built in the 1920s; they used rolled up newspaper in the walls as insulation in the basement (sounds like fire starter, doesn’t it?). Was interesting looking through some of those papers. Bizarre stuff stowed away in old homes, along with all the memories that go unseen.
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Newspaper as insulation – an insurance nightmare but maybe we’ve all seen something like it, even done it. Really interesting advertising for future generations though.
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I’ve wandered past the house(s) where I grew up and often imagined taking a look inside, maybe the owners would see my gazing longingly and invite me in. As an owner I don’t think I’d want to have a previous occupant come in for a nostalgia tour, but I’m weird that way. If it ever came up for sale and I had the money, though, I think I might be tempted to buy that old house I grew up in that was brand new in 1978. Although I don’t think I could live in it. I’d just pop in now and then. Again, I’m weird that way.
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Nostalgia is a pretty private thing innit? Yes, thank you for sharing. Like it.
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Bill, your latest post disappeared – Error 404
Ironic?
The work done, you turned off?
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Ha! I know, pulled it down. See you next time! Be well!
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Cheers
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