It was suppose to be my time, long passed due, actually. All my friends had found theirs. They sent the notices, told their neighbors, bought the flowers. It all looked too important to miss out on. On the life's priority list it fell right after "finish college" which was after "getting baptized" which was after "getting saved".
I'm not saying I was ready to buy into house owning. I had not the character or the stamina, as I would soon find out. I am not even fully sure I had the capasity for the fondness it required, but it was strong idea, and well presented and was put up for sale by a committee of church attenders. They had nothing but good things to say about it. And so, since the "time was right", having graduated from college, I assumed the next logical thing was to step into a life long committment of this sort, even if it was sight unseen. Church logic is often lacking, powerful nevertheless.
No one is worth anything without this kind of union, so I thought. And when relatively young with life in front of you, facing a "worthless life" seems, well, not worth living. Every church goer I knew confirmed this viewpoint. House owners sat in the front of church, held high positions, held their deeds of transfer on their laps and smiled contentedly nodding approvingly at various intervals during the sermon. Houseless vagabonds cleaned the bathrooms and were expected to rehearse the same story lines (only the story lines, not the meanings) during Sunday school and just wait until our special day to arrive, like the coming of the Lord. So, with my mind fully convinced that all meaning came with the signing of this contract, I was eager to do so, as you can well imagine. I didn't do a lot of hunting or speculating on compatibility, I just decided to do it. Compatibility, what was that exactly? Aren't we adjustable creatures after all?
The house did not have a whole lot of character on the inside, it was rather similar to everything else I was accustomed to. It struck the same chords in me that my own family had growing up, which was what I was familiar with. And for some this would have been good enough, but upon hind sight I might have tried moving on from some of the trauma there, because my decision ultimately amplified the struggle. So I guess we could say that the bondages and pitfalls I was accustomed to were never addressed at all. Perhaps because we are recklass creatures of habit without ever realizing what our habits are exacting in consequences. This probably lays claim on the results of my house choosing.
There it stood. Strong. Fortified. Sure. Dominant. All characteristics I admired because they made me feel safe. How I desired a place of my own, where all members inside attended church, spoke the correct theology and said prayers before meals. Yes, keeping up with all that houses require wore me out, but that paled in comparison to the image I could now keep up at church. What a trade off! My strength, often my dignity, and my dreams traded for a high place in the assembly of the saints, a welcomed position as a keeper of the house, my backside warming the seats in front. Club doors swung open! High church societies bowed in my direction!
As the days and years wore on, however, back on the homefront, I noticed how dark the window panes were. They just never seemed to let the light in. It could be the brightest day imaginable outside, full of glory and resolution, but somehow inside the walls of my adored house, the illumination never changed the perspective on anything. I am an artist, I know how light has the capacity to change the perspective on things, but it just never transpired inside those dimly lit rooms. Believe me I tried to scrub them, open them, cover them, but it seemed the harder I tried the darker they got.Â
Also the walls. They were cold and made of cement. How I overlooked this when I was house hunting, I don't know. I could not hang a single picture or drawing on them and painting them did no good. One color looked the same as another. Of all the things that encroched upon my soul this was it. Starring for hours at those unmovable cold walls. I went about keeping up a fire as the only recourse but when I had too much and could not take it anymore I would tend the garden out of doors.
There was a shed in the back of the house I would spend long hours in. The light came in profusely. I could bring my hand up to any task, illlumined by light, and it seemed to find success. Poetry, paintings, songs and all manner of creativity. I wanted to stay there after awhile, and avoid the cold dark house altogether, but I would look out the creaking door from my shed to the house and I would see the shudders begin to shut by themselves and the smoke from the chimney dissipate. I would leave my second nest and run into the house just in time to stoke the fire again, and arrange the tables, cook up a meal and stare at the walls. The unmovable walls.
I feared the day when the house would close up like stone altogether. Was it today? Was it tomorrow? For years this went on. Whatever trauma I endured in childhood, it was nothing like this. My neighbors would worry and wonder why there was such a blazed trail between the rickety old shed and the main house, but no where else. If I was so into trail blazing, why didn't these paths benefit anyone else in the neighborhood? But they didn't know that the single trail left me no time for deep friendships, or relaxed tea times, or long prayer meetings. Everyday was a task of survival.
So the questions inevidably came. "Was I neglecting my place?" "Was I contentious?" "What was I doing in that little shed?" "Why was I doing it?" "Would it do any good at all to throw tins of paint out the windows and send songs into the air from a rickety old shed behind a large grey house, in the middle of no where?"
Counseling, that is what they all decided I would need. But I wondered what it was they want to talk about? One time I ventured to "reach out" as they called it, to somehow prove I wasn't a crazy person who hated everyone on the outside of my trail, perhaps my motive was ultimately self preservation of my ego. That ego dies hard, my friends. Or maybe to just simply prove to myself I wasn't crazy. The jurys out. Â
Nevertheless, I think I had had about enough of all the assuming. "Look!" I said to my shell shocked neighbor, who had been busy chatting on the phone about me "the windows are closing up!" Just to turn around and see the windows wide open with the fire ablazing. I turned back around, shame faced, to the neighbor who had paused her phone conversation just to hear me blabbing about some nonsense that had zero proof to go with it. That was the last time I was doing that and silently walked back to the house.
Whatever was going on, when ever it would end, all I knew was that late at night, the comforting sound of the wind stopped against the cold walls like glass shattering. The firelight was barely if not visable at all against them and I would just lay there alone, pleading that God would bring the daylight soon for every breath was exhausting, sleep never revived me, and no songs were ever sung in that cold dark house.
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