There’s a frozen waterfall three blocks from my front door. Underneath the solid mass of ice, you can hear a rush. Movement peeks from the edge. Burbling. Ice grows, then melts.
Lift eyes to the sky, float those three blocks home. Peeling exterior. Peek in the glowing window. Floorboards uncovered first, dents filled. Sanded down after months of grit underfoot, coated into a smooth welcome. Cracks revealed, patched. Walls dressed up with color and texture. Choreography of furniture-first here, now there, move with each other!
The waterfall ice will get carried away in the current.
I will forget my house ever looked like a construction zone.
It’s been a year and one month of living in my home. How do I explain the way my renovation glacier melted imperceptibly until it was suddenly swept off? I dreamed of the big-reveal moments. Cabinets without grime! VOILA! An inviting living room! TA-DA! But the thing I lived with was tougher and uglier. I can’t bring myself to tell the tidy version of my home’s story. I can’t quite explain the messy version. Here’s my attempt.
Sincerely,
Tenley
Editor-at-Large (and very very small)
Deep Winter (2020/21)
They never told me I was stupid to buy this 2-years-vacant place with grimy counters and scuzzy carpet.
No. They stepped into the vision with me.
“We know you love it here”
Mama, remarkable woman, helped as I went through purchasing limbo:
Every party I host, every sigh of finally-home as I walk through the door, every good convo on the couch, is brought to you by Dad.
Home is in the very walls. And it feels like I belong.
Early Summer ‘21
It feels like it’ll always be bad news. (utilities, etc.)
Desperate scrawl. Hope for what’s to come.
UNSETTLED. I know I want this to be home. I know what I want home to feel like. It’s not here yet.
I don’t want to stay here. I don’t feel I can fix it myself. No bountiful energy.
Dad is tired too. But he shows up, he repairs my walls.
It’s family. Hard to have them filling space, crowding out, and only possible with them.
Home undergirded by my parents’ loving work. Kind of like my whole life, really. What a gift to be their daughter, supported, every next step.
Today
I keep saying I feel like a real person now. It is easier to be the one helping inviting. A little less helpless.
My sister’s living with me now. A place of rest. I was worried—would we chafe at being in each others’ space?
It’s been…easy? This house has always needed people in it.
The table, by the way, hosted many a card game at my next-door neighbor’s house growing up. It made its way to me when they decided to redecorate.
There’s deeper stuff about home that I don’t understand, though I carry it with me.
It’s always been about home for me, in one way or another.
What does it mean to belong in a place?
You stake a claim, the place claims you.
Place asks some things of you—can’t sneak in, poke around, skulk out.
You can’t ditch it. You belong to it.
It feels good to be attached.
Yes, it can chafe, but freedom is found in connection.
Thank you, as always, for reading and being part of my community.
❤️, Ten
Wonderful as always
Tenley – found you via Cup of Jo and am so glad I did! That last bit you wrote about belonging to a place hit home (no pun intended). So good!