A longer form remembrance of what the walls in our home carry in us — and what happens when its future owners break the down those same walls.
= = =
Zillow emailed me an update
on a home, no longer mine.
I've not recently thought
about that place.
A property that legal documents
in archival storage refer to as:
"the marital home."
I note from the teaser pic
embedded in the email body
that the siding is new. Hmm.
They get me; I click through,
upping their click rate score.
Photo one: the front yard,
meant to establish curb appeal.
It was once a multi-height garden
with round beds of ivy and azalea.
Rhododendrons and pachysandra,
which both sound like dinosaurs.
I remember taking our dog
for a stroll past our daffodils,
dogwoods, cherry trees.
Now the garden is flat-cut,
the shrubs all dug out and gone.
Just stubby clumps of grass remain.
Out back, once a shady sanctuary,
now squint-inducing, sun-bleached.
Again, flat flat flat.
All bush and gardens, trees
and ground cover extracted
like unwanted chin hairs.
In place of greenery, fencing.
A yard that used to allow
white tailed deer to roam in and out,
now compartmentalized, closed.
I shake that off, proceed inside.
It becomes imminently clear
this house is all but gutted.
The living room and family,
now a blown-through long hall.
The kitchen cabinets,
the solid cherry ones that
my former husband and I
installed at high dollar,
are now poorly painted in
Apathetic Landlord's White.
(And it's already chipping,
I can't help but observe.)
In fact, everything is
Soulless White.
Stark.
Dark grey plank vinyl
runs all through what
once was
three-inch-wide golden oak.
The kind my generation would
have loved to uncover
in a HGTV D-I-Y remodel.
The creamy patterned linoleum
in the U-shaped kitchen,
the floors we could not afford
to replace, are where our baby
crawled.
Those floors caught the spills
when they had their first bites
of mashed pumpkin
mixed with breast milk.
Those floors are
where our toddler
took their first steps.
And where I once, at long last —
in between the oven
and the sink and the fridge
(the working triangle,
kitchen designers will tell you)
— took a stand.
The warm wooden planks
that ran the length through
the rest of the level, that
our puppy so often peed on,
now all grey synthetic boards.
Bleak.
I imagine Carrie Bradshaw,
should she have seen
these updates, might muse:
I've heard of a glow-up
and a make-under
but what is this, if not
mere fashion blunder?
I gander into what was
the dining room, and wince.
I once carried into this room,
on my grandparent's prize platter,
my first roasted, hosted
Thanksgiving turkey.
It's now a cramped square
with a four-top and clunky chairs.
Mass-printed, overt wall art declares:
IT'S WINE O'CLOCK.
The period feels ominous, not joyful.
Perhaps that is the point?
This room, with its missing chandelier
and desolate walls, was the site of so
many birthdays at a long table
surrounded by loved ones.
Not so much as a chair rail
remains; no chance that even
a crumb from my many
past cakes still lurk there.
Nor spilled candle wax;
the floors are gone here, too.
Despite my better judgement,
I continue the tour;
descend to the basement.
(Is that a metaphor?)
I want see if our other extensive
reno survived new owners.
Short answer:
it did not.
The loan we took out
to pay for a waterproof,
sound-insulated basement
with new walls, ceiling, carpet,
lighting and electrical
must now be heaped in a dump.
I feel partially complicit; that's now
two rounds of walls in the junk yard.
Sorry, Mother Earth.
I thought it would last forever.
Alas, like some first marriages,
and some first home walls,
not all can stand up to
the test of time.
The spot I'd laid down
sprawled on the wool berber,
the one where I sat and bawled
for five hours straight,
is now a work-from-home
Zoom backdrop nook
with unrecognizable carpet.
I click the pic carousel forward.
Ah, I see they managed to put in
that new basement guest room,
one I'd long dreamed of
for visiting in-laws and friends.
Good for them; smart move.
It upped the resale value, as the
Hot Home Update email attests.
But gone, then, is the
house-length storage room,
which had poured concrete
floors painted battleship matte.
So too, the workshop,
the peg board tool wall,
and molded utility sink
on its rickety triangular legs.
The cement floor; gone.
But I can still feel, vividly,
its morgue-like chill
seeping through my bare soles.
The fridge and chest freezer
that my first husband and I had
hauled down there, earning
scrapes, sweat and curses, in return.
In place of food storage alley:
a three-piece bathroom.
Bland. But Practical.
Nice.
Removed from the fossil record
is the shadowy corridor
I called The Spider Lair.
The slalom I ran through
on my way to collect
thawed grass-fed beef
bundled in butcher's paper.
Or deposit a vat of warm broth.
Occasionally,
unpredictably,
arachnids would
exact their web tax.
Where do they keep their food?
Do they not cook?
Do they not host?
The size of the table
might indicate as much.
What a waste
of an open floor plan.
Sigh.
As the images of strangeness
of rewriting, and
of unknowing accumulate,
I begin to take it personally.
The realtor's photo spread now
has me scale the front stairs.
I take a deep breath.
Center myself.
The next part may cut.
The pictures are leading
me upstairs to the living level.
I pop into our old Au Pair room.
I find it to be bereft of charm.
This may be the only room
left unrenovated,
yet still somehow barer
than the day when I moved out.
Our former Guest Room?
Now a stranger's child's bedroom.
And with a workout corner on one side.
That's a choice, I suppose.
Something else is missing, but what?
I scroll back, forward.
I scan the photos with dread:
All the Pottery Barn curtains
and sheers
and window dressings
and blackout blinds
and finials are gone,
ripped inexpertly from every wall.
As if each window had
their eyelashes yanked off
with hot wax, they blink baldly
into the room, unable to raise
a stern brow to grimace in protest.
The now denuded windows
highlight another capital investment.
A door-to-door salesman with
a heavy presentation kit had knocked.
The man convinced him and me
to "invest!" in replacement vinyl.
And so, we'd trashed the originals
for the latest model.
He'd and I found the money,
from a 401(k), likely.
After paying handsomely for
those full-house replacements,
I later discovered those 'quality' panes
were overpriced big box store basics.
What rubes; such babies.
Thinking of.
I cannot delay further.
Time to face the hard ones.
I turn into the two rooms that
hold the most power,
the most meaning.
The first shot of my child's
nursery has me physically ill,
clutching at my throat.
Where are the colors?
The serene walls and closet doors
in Benjamin Moore Aura
blues and cream are gone.
Overwritten, whited-out,
carted away, discarded.
Now,
a doorless void;
more grey.
I'm staring into what was
once my ensuite bedroom.
The room that barely muffled
so many tears and fights
and makeups and roiling angst.
Where so much trying and
trying and trying without success
for a child unfolded, with vexation
and frustration until IVF saved us.
Or so I thought.
Because soon, that relationship
coded and died, after
many a DNR was ignored.
And now here I look, and
the walls are different, tighter.
They must have restructured
the whole primary suite.
What once was a pass through,
outfitted with His and Her
double closets,
is now a white wall
with a large barn door slider.
My closet, now Her closet,
where once I stored
all his skeletons and all
my receipts, my proof of pain?
It is now shortened,
and open-faced.
Where do they even hide
their inner thoughts
and fears, here?
I wonder.
His closet, now another man's,
once held Army fatigues
and trunks full of secrets.
It now boasts open rows of
pricey kicks and curated clothes.
Our old bathroom used to be
a beige sink and robin's egg floral
and standing-room-only shower.
My big splurge had been adding
a mirrored medicine cabinet and
new lights before selling the place.
That constricted water closet
is now a semi-grand ensuite
with standing tub, spa shower,
double vanity and double mirrors.
This got to me, I will admit it.
Were he and I to have had
all that extra space,
the separate sinks, sufficient storage,
a relaxing tub, could that, would that,
have saved my marriage?
I may never know, if it was
lack of space,
or grace, or trust
that eroded my first go at forever.
But look, they kept the sole
small bathroom window.
The one with a shallow bench
where I'd keep my latest Vanity Fair.
The one I had perched precariously
on that one spring night
as I peered down onto the patio
oddly lit by the motion-sensor flood light.
Where I had looked on,
conveniently obscured by mesh screen
while I clutched my swollen
undulating, kicking abdomen
and tried to calculate the risks.
A, I could stay there,
in that phone booth-sized bathroom,
a vertical coffin of pride and hope,
frozen forever.
I could have this baby
by myself, right here,
and live off the tap water.
I could never leave.
Or B, I could brave it,
creep down the stairs, and
walk right into the marital disaster
unfolding outside,
right under my nose.
They know, which path I chose.
That evening at the window
seared into my memory
and sliced my soul.
That renovation-untouched
window and seat
I see in this proof of life photo,
it became the seed crystal.
However slow a catalyst, it
was the start of the end.
The beginning of me
selling that starter house,
the one I thought
I'd fill with babies
and grow old in,
as had its former occupants.
And the impetus for me
moving out
and moving on
and finding trust again
and forging new love
and finding new walls.
That led to today, and here,
where I sit in front of my laptop
peering through virtual windows
in self-righteous dismay.
Same property, zero resemblance.
Stalking my first home,
my first life, through
someone else's photos.
And while doing so, I now realize,
I'd stopped respirating.
I wrench my eyes from my spot
six inches from the glowing screen.
I expel all the stale air in my lungs.
I shake my shoulders, unclench my jaw.
This is okay, I tell myself.
Maybe all the sadness
had permeated the sheetrock.
Maybe that marriage
was indelible, if not eternal.
Maybe those walls needed to go.
We do not own the sky
or the sea, or the earth, not really.
Nor apparently, do we own the gardens.
This is as it should be.
= = =
Now I live in the woods
with my new life
and my beloved husband,
and our family.
Unlike a gut reno,
we crafted our Together
from the fragments
and filaments of prior worlds.
You can see the DNA
of our past lives;
the seams and stitching
of where He and I became Us.
And you can see hallmarks
of this home's prior owners.
Their questionable paint tastes.
The twenty-year old kitchen re-do.
Our home's last residents left for us
unwieldy personalizations,
many of which that remain intact.
Part in honor, part in pragmatism.
The central vacuum in the garage,
my second husband has dismantled
and lugged to the transfer yard.
But the clunky yellowing plastic
central vac outlets?
They remain in every room,
untouched.
If not beautiful, they are bearable.
Because not all history can be,
nor should be, erased.
And I hope when they look
at future photos of this home
— should they live long enough —
that they see a little bit of themselves,
of their marriage, and parenthood
clinging to the walls of this place.
I hope they can zoom in and find
a crumb of birthday cake
entombed in a break in the
quarter round molding.
Or they spy a stain on a wall,
and say, "I made that."
My partner and I chose
our current home, just as
had the owners before us, for
its majestic old growth trees.
For this home's floor-to-ceiling
windows both highlight the foliage
and let in the light,
keeping sun in our hearts.
I pray the next owners
of this, our old-new home,
find love in the same forested lot,
and embrace these walls
and woods for what they are,
what they've seen and carry,
and what they've been
— as well as what they'll be.
Here's hoping.
