Can a house be a them? For me it can. I should write about the house I live in now, or perhaps the one from my childhood, but lately my old house in Seattle keeps coming to mind. I think that it is the sheltering in place. I spent so much time alone in that house. I started settling into me at that house.
It was a small split level, it was perfect in many ways and not perfect in more way, but it was mine. I was constantly moving furniture around, painting the bedrooms, and trying to nudge and push it into being my dream home.
It was just me in the house for most of my 12 years there. Two relationships ended there, but most of my memories are just me. A single, woman in her mid thirties.
The memories are warm. Warm light, warm kitchen, warm conversations and warm hopes. So many hopes. There were of course tears, and there was a time of darkness, a time when there was no hope.
The kitchen was its heart. Cooking, baking, canning. A dishwasher that stopped working when I didn’t have the money to fix it, the water stain on the floor under the dog’s water dish. I baked bread, and croissants, I made jams and chutneys, pickles and sauces.
A small living dining area that held a table for 8 if everyone likes each other a lot, and two cozy arm chairs. Sometimes the sofa would be there, but mostly the chairs. Places to sit with a cat in a lap and a book or laptop at hand. Art from friends on the walls, bookcases built by hand, and the perfect wall shade–adobe beige.
In another bedroom that I had once hoped would be a nursery, became the art room. Books were bound, stories written, mail art planned and all sorts of thoughts and ideas were sketched and drawn in journals.
My bedroom moved depending on the season. In summers it was in the basement, those sunken split levels keep the lower floor cool. In the winter it was on the top floor for warmth and coziness. I slept with the windows open when I could, the sound of rain was always the best way to fall asleep.
There was the doggo of course, and the cats, my old grey cat is buried there. He traveled with me for 20 years, bringing me mice till the end. He was a mighty hunter, and never hogged the bed like the doggo did. The doggo–well, I cannot write about him yet. I still miss him too much.
The backyard was perfect. 100 acres behind it of woodland. Tall evergreens, high fences. A neighbor who occasionally would shoot off a potato canon, another neighbor who kept asking to try out the hot tub whenever his wife was out of town. Summer dinner parties, swinging in the hammock, reading in a chair while the world was nowhere to be seen. I miss that backyard even now.
The house took all my money, and a lot of my time. Houses are never-ending projects. I traveled little, but earned my college degree, reunited with friends, settled into the me I wanted to be. I went through wind storms, snow storms, and heat waves. I made it through a very dark time barely. It was a very good house, with very good bones.
And then I left. I left the rain and the trees, I left the warm kitchen, and the hammock. I left it all and moved to here. The reason was love, and I have no regrets for that, but I miss the rain and the trees. I miss the green of the backyard and the windows open during a rainstorm. I miss the time I had to navel gaze, even as I love the life I have. Leaving that house was like leaving a friend.
Snapshots of Them 
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