Still Life

The house nextdoor is about to come crashing down. Bits which can be salvaged are being peeled of it, leaving boarded over windows and naked thresholds. The first time we ventured inside we were attacked by fleas. So yesterday I went in inside wearing pants and cowgirl-style rainboots. Al said I was a vision. I was also wearing gardening gloves and equipped with my spade; I'd been excavating abundant aloe vera volunteers and stacking brick from the tumbled-down fountain in the back yard. In I went.

This was once a home. Now clearly abandoned for more than four years, there was not much left but strange time capsules of plastic in several closets, a master bath full of half used potions, drawers full of spare nails, mollybolts and neglected cast iron and tin crockery. Full cans of Faultless Spray Starch, Crushed Granite, Rustoleum.

Amongst the toys I found so many things I'd played with as a child of the 70s. Much like those "You know you were a child of the 70s" emails, I immediately identified the Star Wars ships, playmobil (it used to come in Happy Meals, remember?), Hot Wheels, Math-n-Spell from Texas Instruments and boxes and boxes of cassette tapes. Familiar yet foreign: one orange and brown macrame quilt wreaking of urine, as likely human as raccoon or possum.

Scatttered feathers recalled the recent hawk inhabitants, who hatched their young in or on the house (noone is sure).
Downstairs I gathered some classic children's vinyl. A treasure trove of Disney and other albums familiar to both Al and me from our childhoods.

After gathering my small stash of redeemable items -- among them some old fashioned clothes pins for art projects and a coffee table book of Norman Rockwell art -- it struck me hard that this was once a home full of family. As one, completely-intact self-timeline posterboard in the youngest boy's room attested: they once played on little ride-on cars here, posed for family photos on the front steps at each of the seasons, dressed up for Halloween and went to bed with great expectations at Christmastime.

Noone took care of this house, this home. The lasting tales I've heard about the children, now grown, were that they all ran into one type of trouble or another. The mother was stern and dismissive whenever I met her. Life hardened her, and she has a reputation for being difficult to deal with.

Paige and Graham dived into the project of fixing up this child-sized chair with gusto. They sanded, brushed off and painted it in two hours. Old is new. A little elbow grease is such a rewarding effort.