> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://dianaludwick.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Walls - URL: https://dianaludwick.com/walls/ - Published: 2026-05-02T18:31:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-24T20:09:01.000Z - Description: “Walls,” a reflection on past lives, failed marriage, first homes, the perpetual dance and change of homeowners, written May 02, poem 122 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo, " Toddler Looks Out Front Door," (c) 2026 Diana Ludwick. - Author: Diana Ludwick - Tags: 2026 Poetry Challenge, Long form musings, Poems, Reminiscing, 2026, Army, Au Pair, Azalea, Baby, Bathroom, Catalyst, Closet, Divorce, DNR, Fatigues, First Home, Grass, Heartbreak, Home Renovation, Hot Wax, IVF, Kitchen, Laptop, Marriage, May, Melancholy, Memory, New Owners, Nostalgia, Old Home, Photos, Pregnancy, Puppy, Realtor, Relationship, remembrance, Resale, Secrets, Seed Crystal, Trunk, Virtual Tour, Walk-Through, #Migrated-1792872215677, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-10-24 20:03 *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 wall*s. \= = = 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.