It's a curse

Seeing faces, that is. In everything. Well, in things that look like faces. Like happy food containers:



Or anxious outlets:



Or shrieking mailboxes:


They're everywhere. Better faces than voices, I guess.

June 12, 2006 - First Night

I’m sitting here in the breakfast nook, eyes a little bleary, listening to tiny wind chimes as Carole decides what to do with the little birdhouse chimes that for years have been hanging from the kitchen ceiling fan that is now ours.

I bought a house today. I won’t own it for many years likely, but it’s mine. No longer is it merely something I’d like to do some time—know I will, but in the future. No. This is my house. It’s my yard, my garage, my deck—my house.

Now she’s trying to force the electrical cord on the food processor into the base. She did it. Now it sits neatly next to the crockpot. She neatening up the kitchen. Our new Cuisinart 4-slice toaster that replaced our wedding-gift toaster is next.

We closed this morning at 11:00. Danny met us there and we had a good time. No, really. Several humorous stories concerning parrots were told, mostly by me. Tammi, the Republic Title lady, related how at one of her closings a man showed up with a parrot on his shoulder, and not for comedic effect. It was deadly serious. How could I not tell what stories I knew? We were done in an hour, though we did have to run to Texans to get a check to cover a balance on the final closing costs. On the way back to Republic Title we stopped at a house on Old York for a *third* time to get a picture. (The second time was to replace a blurred virtual tour. This time was to get a still picture I hadn’t realized I’d missed.)

Chrisana is a saint. She of Chrisana and Vance, and son Travis, the previous owners of our house. We truly could not have been more fortunate in a couple from whom to buy a house. He patched holes and painted and ran an additional electrical line into the living room for us just as a freebie. And we keep discovering things that Chrisana left for us: sugar and creamer in the cupboard, plastic containers with lids in a cabinet, plastic cups, a cookie press for Christmas cookies, and even a hand-drawn map of the neighborhood with all the neighbors’ names and phone numbers marked on their respective houses. They’re just golden people. It really is a shame they couldn’t move just next door. We wanted their house, but we’d really like them for neighbors. They’ve clearly set a standard; all the neighbors are sick they’re leaving.

After closing we went back to the apartment, meeting Dad there. He’d brought the truck to help us move our mattress and box spring plus the kids’ bed stuff. As it happened, he ended up taking Carole’s Kia home and we kept the truck full of stuff. We picked up the kids and came here to meet Vance and Chrisana to get the keys from them. Vance helped us unload and they were on their way. After they left I shot a video with my Olympus camera giving a tour of the house.

The kids were silly excited. They took their own pillows in to the bedrooms as we unloaded their mattresses, then just spazzed around the place. They started playing a “game” of banging on the nice upright piano that Vance and Chrisana left, and then running into one of the bedrooms to be goofy. Eventually they made their way back to the shed to play with all the “new” toys that Travis, Vance and Chrisana’s twelve-year-old son, had left for them. He’s a really good kid. We think as the youngest child he enjoys being looked up to by someone younger. We took the kids back to the apartment to feed them while I broke down their bedroom cubbies to bring here. Carole in the meantime was getting a—well, she was packing. The overnight essentials (mostly). When we came back here the kids were still vibrating with excitement, doing silly dances around the living area—“Clint, look how I can dance sideways”—and watching us ready their bedroom. They both seem very happy here, especially, it seems, Angelina. When she was dancing near me in the living room I knelt down and “Pssst”-ed her to come over. She was curious and did, but as she approached I extended my arms in a hug and she smiled a bit and put her arm around me and sat on my leg. I asked her if she was very happy in our new house and she said, “Yes. Are we going to live here when I’m 19?” I said we very well might be, that this was going to be her home for a long time. She seemed very contented with that. They liked having all their stuff in a new room. They won’t be sleeping in our room anymore, which does tweak a little bit. It was very cramped in that one bedroom, and I will love the privacy of having our own room like we ought, but it was nice being able to see them asleep when we came in to go to bed.

It shouldn’t be surprising that we’re already seeing things that we need: a nightstand for the bed, end tables for the couch, Tiki torches or the like for the deck, cubby holes in the laundry room on the way to the garage where the kids can put school stuff and coats. And while the Granny wallpaper in the living room does fit us in a way—because, as I told Carole earlier, we are kinda Granny-type people—it will be changed to something less Granny. It is nice to finally have enough space to hang all of our pictures. It is nice to finally have enough space for the kids to be able to play like kids. It is nice to have a big kitchen. It is nice to have enough space to breathe. It is nice to have our own house.

This is our house. This will be our first home. This will be the Christmases they’ll remember most as kids. This will be where they discover their own way, and bring friends home to play, kids running straight through as a blur from front door to back on the way to the backyard. This will be where we enjoy evenings with our friends, lounging on the deck in the cool night shade with torches and chimenia burning. It might very well be where they learn to play their first instruments, and, who knows, maybe where they even get ready for prom, and high school graduation. I mean, my god: Is this the home they’ll leave when they finally leave home?

It’s so hard to imagine it, and yet I know it will happen, and there is good reason to believe it could happen here. This is a good house. It will be a great home. Who knows what the future holds, but for the moment, and for many years to come, this house will hold ours, and for that we will call it home.

I grew up knowing what a home was, but never wondering much about having one of my own. It was always some far-off future place, even when I considered it as an adult. That was something to do once the prologue ended, and it never did. I was becoming used to that fact.

And then it did, rather abruptly but still quietly. The first chapter of my life, of the life I’ve been waiting so long to start, has to my continuing surprise begun. Welcome to my life, I keep telling myself. Welcome to our home.

Carole’s using the vase that Chrisana left to fill the Brita dispenser in the refrigerator. She’s finally organized all she can for the moment. She’s telling me where pen and pencil are, in the long drawer to the right of the sink. That sounds fine. And now she stands across the table from me, staring at the dark living room, wondering what else she can do. There’s nothing but getting ready for bed. A kiss, and off she goes, and so do I.

Welcome to our home.