48. Anatomy of Home – Judith Hannan
On first glance, my apartment looks clean, uncluttered, and sleek. But what I see now is the peeling paint in the kitchen, the scuff marks along the floorboards, the indentation in the sofa…
I’ve been looking very closely at my apartment recently, and it’s not just because I am cleaning and sterilizing nooks and crannies that have escaped my routine attention. Having recently spent six months in Dublin sleeping in a different bed, reading in a yellow chair, and mapping out new routes for walking my dogs, my home in New York City doesn’t feel like the haven I was looking forward to returning to. I feel pixelated, like I haven’t been quite put back together after being beamed up by Scottie in a Star Trek episode. Or perhaps it’s the apartment that is losing its definition for me.
On first glance, my apartment looks clean, uncluttered, and sleek. But what I see now is the peeling paint in the kitchen, the scuff marks along the floorboards, the indentation in the sofa where I spend too much time, the scratches on the floors, the spots on the rugs where my dogs had a few accidents.
The three children I raised here are out on their own. The noise they made doesn’t even echo anymore. My husband and I are of an age when we are thinking about how to invigorate this last portion of our lives. I am confused about the role my home will play. It has become part life raft, a point from which I can dangle most of my body so long as I can still hold on with at least a few fingers, and part a pocket full of stones keeping me immobilized. But it is also a place of beauty, a place of light and love.
I typically fight discomfort, but now I am compelled to examine it, to sit it down and talk to it, to reach an agreement with it and fashion a revised definition of home.
– Judith Hannan
Prompt:
Write about a time when you felt a shift in your relationship to your home. This could be your present home, your childhood home, or a temporary shelter. Think not only about the physical structure but the people there with you, or those who are not. Was there an event that led to this shift, like a major life change or extended time away? How do you feel about home now? Are there any revisions you’d like to make to how you define home?
Ayling Dominguez
Location: Bronx, NY
About: As a daughter of immigrants, with parents whose own roots are elsewhere, and with societal forces that continually try to uproot you, I've come to conceptualize home as an ongoing project. I oftentimes look outwards to my chosen family and forged communities as sources of homeness for me, but this day, I felt like and finally realized that I, too, can be a home.
Age: 22
Lori Tucker-Sullivan
Location: Detroit, MI
About: I am a writer living in Detroit. I am currently working on a book about the widows of rock stars who died young and what they have taught me about grief. Forthcoming from BMG in spring, 2021.
Age: 56
A Shift in My Relationship to my Home, Anatomy of a House
I’ve written previously about the home that my late husband and I renovated (prompt 13 New Beginnings). To go through the renovation of a home is to know its anatomy intimately. The home was originally built in the early 1900s with timbers milled on site making studs that went from the basement to the attic in the center of the house. When we pulled out the windows we marveled at the bubbly, uneven glass and the huge lead counterweights hidden inside the trim. As we renovated, we found years’ worth of nuts hidden by squirrels inside the pocket doors, and gooey white fungus growing on the porch roof. A family of gophers lived under the porch in an abandoned cistern. Newspapers from the 1940s were layered under the linoleum on the second floor. Someone had notched lines in the wood trim to mark the growth of children. Old photos found under floorboards showed a couple skinny dipping in the pond behind the house. And a LIFE magazine from 1967 told the story of a UFO sighting at the edge of the property.
We pulled all of it down, giving minimal thought to the family that had lived there previously. We opened up spaces to modernize and replaced nearly everything inside. A hulking oak dining table was the only furniture in the place when we moved in. My father cut the legs down so we could make it into a coffee table for our living room. It was a beautiful piece and I’m sure it had seen many family meals.
Over the years, after we gutted everything inside and built it back, we created our own memories in that house, our own notches in the trim reflecting how quickly our children grew. We added a family room and garage with a bonus room over it. We decorated, entertained, celebrated and grew into a family in that home. In many ways our memories replaced those made by the original owners or maybe they joined them in some ethereal place, intertwined.
It was tough to leave the house after my husband died, but I knew I could never keep it up. As we had renovated twenty years prior, things were starting to need replacement again. When the furnace started to go, I knew I couldn’t stay and invest all over again. I had talked with my children about leaving the house and moving to the city. But with things starting to need repair, that plan was moved up by two years.
The house sold after 98 showings over four months. It was a crazy, exhausting time, and most people just wanted to come through the “renovated farmhouse” they had heard about. It was frustrating and depressing to put on a show for people to judge the structure that meant so much to us. Although we had time to prepare to move out, when the moving vans arrived, we were barely ready. I knew in my head what I had to do, but my heart wasn’t in it. It was terribly upsetting for my children, to be removed from the only home they had ever known, especially after losing their dad. They told me they understood, but I know it was painful. The three of us sat in the yard after the moving van finally left and had one last good cry together.
Before moving out, I called the granddaughter of the people that built the house. She still lived in town and I had met her at school functions. I offered her the table and she was delighted to take it. I was downsizing so it felt right that she should have it. It occurred to me that we hadn’t given much thought to the family that lived there before us. By the time we arrived, eager to make the house our own, they were long since moved away. But I knew then that the house had once meant a great deal to some other family and wanted to make that connection.
Recently, my daughter and I noticed one of the people that own our house posting on the neighborhood Facebook page we’re still on. We clicked on the name and went immediately to the photos. There, we saw pictures of their dogs sleeping in front of our woodstove, our bookshelves lined with their books and photos, their cat sitting on our porch, their son riding our lawnmower. I was surprised at how visceral the feelings were seeing someone else living in “our home.” It has been five years and I certainly understood that the house is no longer ours. But to see such proof of someone else living there, I was taken aback in a way that I didn’t expect. They appear to be happy and I am happy they are making their own memories to now intertwine with those of two other families who have called it home.
Sharmila Rao
Location: Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
About: An aspiring writer seeking the companionship of words.
Age: 53
A tribute to my childhood home and my beloved father.
"Brush your teeth, say your prayers and off to bed. " This was Mum' s regular reprise each night; followed by a gentle admonishing when we delayed. Giggling, as we brush our teeth, my sister and I would race to the bedroom and leaping onto the large teak -wood bed, quickly snuggle into our blankets.
Our bedroom was the largest room in the house. I loved the soothing glint of morning light on it's leaf- green walls. It gave me the joyous feeling of a beautiful day in Spring.
The bed was close to the only window in the room. Beyond was an open-air ,cantilevered balcony overlooking a huge playground.
Lying in bed, the inky night sky and twinkling stars seemed so close. I always wished to pluck one.
Dad slept on a mattress on the floor next to our bed. He loved his space.
Cosily settled in our blanket we would egg him on for a story. This was mostly done without Mum knowing.
My father was an ace at storytelling. His innate flair for words and near perfect intonation created an extraordinary replication of any event- real or created.
He had an impressive repertoire of stories. This was one he had heard from his father. It was part of popular folklore in his hometown .
As he began we could feel the excitement and anticipation slowly heightening.
"The village clock strikes a sinister twelve. Every one is in a deep sleep , all around is the silence of a graveyard. A full moon plays hide-and-seek in the cloudy sky. The coconut trees cast weird shadows on the lonely road. An owl hoots with a creepy sense of foreboding. All of a sudden one hears the plaintive wail of a stray dog. They say animals can sense the unknown. There is an uncanny feel in the air.
(Dad would put in all the necessary creepy and eerie sounds of swishing, creaking and what -have- you.)
Suddenly a shadow emerges out of the darkness of Ganapathy Temple road. The moonlight shines on a semi- formed apparition that seems to be floating . It slowly approaches and stops. Then looking around for a victim it wails a bloodcurdling scream. It is the deathly hour of the dreaded Mastee the headless ghost who walks the streets of Mastikatte .
In the best of his imitation Dad would slowly and unsuspectingly creep onto us and we frozen with fear would scream loudly for Mother.
She would immediately come to our rescue and give him a good piece of her mind for terrifying us girls. Dad would laugh and slink into his bed.
We totally believed this story and it took us quite some years to get over the horrific scare of the dreaded Mastee !
Although we were afraid, we thoroughly enjoyed the narration , the build-up and it's known climax. We often asked Dad to repeat it and he always obliged. With him anytime was story time.
Dad was an incorrigible reader and compulsive reader. It was rare to see him without a book in hand. Storytelling naturally followed.
Early in his career he had worked for a British Company one of the few still in Independent India, and got familiar with the European way of life. On his official trips touring deep in the heart of Central India he traversed jungles and narrated the amazing experiences he had there. I took special pride in the one where he had shot a man-eating leopard with his 12 bore rifle.
His impressive collection of ghost stories was from the old bungalows where they sometimes stayed overnight.
In those days with no internet or easy access to books, Dad was like the encyclopedia, in our very own library - the green bedroom.
Come evening , he would sit on his favourite armchair, a drink in hand and charged with emotion recount tales of heroic courage and grit during the days of the World Wars. Be it the dynamics of World History or the wonders of the human body and modern medicine we listened to it all with awe and admiration. He loved his jokes and the bedroom would echo with our laughter at his endless anecdotes.Sometimes he would play his guitar and we sang along with him beautiful songs sung by Elvis and Frank Sinatra.
All this became a part of our education.
A liberal and democratic world view, the respect for rational and scientific thinking and an everlasting love for the English language and literature. All these were gifts from my Dad- my only inheritance.
It was those stories that made me what I am . Thank you Dad.
Thank you green room - my window to the world!
Terry Jago
Location: Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada
About: Retired nurse manager from the Canadian Prairies whose passions are writing and photography. This post was inspired by a prompt that would look back on a home, perhaps a childhood home or a move. It started out as a " home tour " and became very emotional.
Age: 69
I was nine when I moved into the house I remember most as home. It was a four-story split-level home on the corner of 10th and Henry. My dad had it constructed so it was just right for our family of five.
I have two wonderful sisters, and I am in the middle – 2.5 years between each of us. We each had our own bedroom in the lower level. For some reason, my sisters sometimes said favoritism, I had the largest room. Each room was a different colour, with wallpaper that we each picked out. Mine was green – of course. Having the biggest bed meant giving up my room for their sleepovers. I didn't mind.
Many of our family times took place around the kitchen table. I can just imagine some of the planning that went into that kitchen. The stove was a double wall oven and had a retractable element shelf. I am not sure what bargaining went on between my parents, but the appliances all went to an autobody shop and came out my mother’s favourite colour – turquoise. We were probably the only family we knew that had a dishwasher.
But it was the 4th level that we spent much of our time. It was a long bowling alley shaped room with older furniture and a fireplace. This is where we would find our mother when we came home from school. At her sewing machine, a trusty Elna, sewing all of our clothes, often without a pattern and from looking at a style in Seventeen Magazine. It was here that we brought all our friends, and sometimes even our boyfriends. It was our space when it wasn’t Mom’s sewing room. It was here that we found gifts under the tree Christmas morning, where Dad cooked steaks on the fireplace grate, and it was here where a bunch of giggly girls had sleepovers.
Around the corner from the rumpus room you would find a large laundry /ironing room. Even more time was spent there, not because we liked doing laundry, but that is where the downstairs phone was. We would wait our turn to call our friends, and talk for hours, sitting on the floor by the ironing board. We would hear a knock on the door, and one of us would be begging time from the others.
But it was also in this house that our world changed. It started out with an excision of a mole on our mom’s forehead, and soon became a “radical neck dissection” and radiation. In the winter of 1965-6 she was in hospital and came back with a four-pronged cane and the inability to use one side of her body. . A housekeeper arrived and looked after her while we were in school, preparing wonderful home cooked meals and looking after her with all the care and attention she deserved. It was here that I learned a little about my future career in nursing, helping her eat her dinner, or climb up the stairs or even sometimes to the toilet.
It was in this house, that some words were never spoken. Dying, terminal, Cancer. I remember once that my dad telling that she was not coming home from the hospital, but it was later when I actually did a shift with her in the hospital by myself, that I learned what that meant.
It was in this house that we learned to live without her. My oldest sister went to college. There were just the three of us left at that large kitchen table. I learned to cook the meals and do the wash, and even to iron my dads white cotton shirts. I did that until someone at the office asked who was doing his shirts and chastised my dad into using a laundry service.
Oddly, it was in the same house where she had been such a central figure, that we couldn’t say her name, or talk about her. It was also in that kitchen my dad told me he had been dating and I found out that we would have a new stepmother only eight months after Mom’s death. “Could I cook her a nice meal? “
Somehow, because it was supposed to, and I knew no other way, my life went on. High School football games, dances, dating and lots of friends. Somehow, because I was supposed to, I stayed strong. Somehow having a stepmother who was diametrically the opposite of our mom, became my accepted norm.
Dad and my stepmother sold the house in 1971. The doodling and the friends’ phone numbers on the wall beside the phone stayed with the house. I pretended I didn’t miss it.
But as I walked through another grief fourteen years later, I missed my home, my mom and my anticipated life. I grieved. I healed.