Window shopping and small town life

It's Spring! Or almost, anyway; today was actually really cold. But I've seen leaf buds on a few trees, and it's March for heaven's sake! Change is a-brewin'! The world is about to slip on its axis and drop down into that most fabulous of seasons where everything is alive and growing and reaching its arms up to the sun. We're on the cusp, kids. Any day now. :-)

DH had the day off today. We spent the afternoon looking at houses. Ours out West still hasn't sold yet, but our realtor assures us that things will start to pick up with the warm weather and I'm not concerned. Besides, the market here is just as slow; if we find a house we love and can't make an offer for another 6 months or more it's likely to still be available. And in the meantime it's fun to dream.

The realtor, a friend of DH's uncle, took us to her favorite house first:



OH MY GOODNESS.

I was all set to be reasonable because it's something like 4,000 square feet; I'm a bad housekeeper in the ~900 square feet we've got now so what do I need with three stories plus a basement? But! But! Hardwood floors throughout. Huge high ceilings. Beautiful dark wood molding. Fireplaces. A sun room! Large windows everywhere, including a row of original stained glass windows on the second floor landing. Radiators with decorative covers. Pocket doors. A laundry chute, even! Charm oozing from every corner of the place. Oooooozing, I tell you. Each of the five bedrooms was huge and painted in lovely colors I would have chosen myself (but see, I wouldn't have to now!). Oh, and did I mention that the master bedroom has its own sitting room that opens up to the balcony and a porch swing? Hmmmm?

In love yet?

It doesn't help that I spent my college years here, swinging on a similar porch swing:



We really don't need that much house, but holy cow does it tug at my heart.

She took us to this house, DH's favorite, next:



This one is plenty spacious, too, but "only" has two stories and a basement (for short people -- very low ceilings down there!). It has beautiful large windows, plantation shutters, storage bench window seats, pocket doors, fireplaces with all sorts of charm.... I wouldn't have chosen the wallpaper or paint, but that's easy enough to change. It looks a little more broken-in than the first one -- but that's probably a good thing; my girls (and I, with my own slovenly ways) would probably tear up that first house shamefully. This one feels more lived in, less museumy. It's homey.

Still. Do you feel my slight lack of enthusiasm? "I never should have let you see that first one," DH said as we left the second. LOL. He's right. I would probably have raved obnoxiously about his favorite if I hadn't seen the other one first.

Not that we're planning to get either of them, of course. We're still just window shopping, and I'd like to look at a few mid-century ranch houses. And bricks. I like bricks.

We actually did look at a single story house earlier in the day, though it isn't on the market yet. DH had heard that its owners were thinking of moving, so we just knocked on the door and the lady of the house was gracious enough to show us around. It was a beautiful, well cared for home but I don't think it had enough yard for our needs. Oh well.

The house isn't what I wanted to tell you about that visit, anyway. DH knew the woman's family; her son had been his junior high school English teacher, and he knew some of her grandchildren as well. As we walked through the rooms he kept stopping to ask about all the photos. "Is that Mike, there? Hasn't changed much. That can't be Sarah! She was just a kid the last time I saw her! Now whose wedding was this?" They talked and reminisced, and then we came to a photo of the woman's sister.

"How's she doing?" DH asked.

"She passed away three years ago, actually. Broke my heart."

We offered our condolences.

"It was lung cancer; she was a smoker, you know. They diagnosed her in June and she was gone by October. I always told her...." She sighed. "My parents put her in bed with me when she was a year old and I was around ten. We shared a room for the next eight years, until I got married. In fact, on my wedding day she sat down on K's lap and cried, just begging him not to take me away from her.... She was my little buddy, always."

Talk about tugging at your heart! Honestly, I had to fight back the tears. So sweet and sad.

I love the way DH talks to people here. Even growing up, he was intimately connected to the community: His grandpa was a mason who helped build many of the older houses; his great uncle was a doctor; his parents and an uncle were all teachers; one way or another, they -- and DH -- came to know just about every family in town. And now, again, as a doctor himself, he's got his finger on the pulse. He knows everyone's stories, how they all intersect with each other, who their grandparents and first cousins and ex-wives all are....

He didn't have the benefit of knowing everyone so well when we first got to our old town, but his nurse did. She'd been there forever and seen everyone and everything. We spent a 4th of July afternoon at her house one year and listened to her and her daughter tell the most fascinating stories over burgers and potato salad. The one snippet I remember best was the punchline to a story about someone the daughter had gone to school with. After first cataloging his family connections and noting his chronic bad luck: "The train comes through on that line, what, about once every ten years? And of course he manages to get hit by it!" Everybody laughed (as I recall the guy in question only ended up with a broken leg; I'm sure it wouldn't have been funny if he'd been more seriously hurt).

But anyway.

I was thinking about those conversations tonight, and it reminded me of a poem I'd read years ago in the book The Language of Life, a collection of conversations with poets by the journalist Bill Moyers. I dug it up and hope it's all right to reprint that poem here with proper attribution.

Genealogy
by James A. Autry (begins on pg. 18 of The Language of Life)

You are
in these hills
who you were and who you will become
and not just who you are

      She was a McKinstry
      and his mother was a Smith

And the listeners nod
at what the combination will produce
those generations to come
of thievery or honesty
of heathens or Christians
of slovenly men or working

      'Course her mother was a Sprayberry

And the new name rises
to the shaking of heads
the tightening of lips
the widening of eyes

      And his daddy's mother was a McIlhenney

Oh god a McIlhenney
and silence prays for the unborn children
those little McKinstry Smith Sprayberry McIlhenneys

      Her daddy was no count and her daddy's daddy was no count

Old Brother Jim Goff said it
when Mary Allen was pregnant

      Might as well send that chile
      to the penitentiary soon he's born
      gonna end up there anyway

But that lineage could also forgive
with benign expectation
of transgressions to come

      'Course, what do you expect
      his grandaddy was a Wilkins

or

      The Whitsells are a little crazy
      but they generally don't beat up nobody outside the family

or

      You can't expect much work out of a Latham
      but they won't steal from you

In other times and other places
there are new families and new names

      He's ex P&G
      out of Benton and Bowles
      and was brand management with Colgate

And listeners sip Dewar's and soda or puff New True Lights
and know how people will do things
they are expected to do
New fathers spring up and new sons and grandsons
always in jeopardy of leaving the family

      Watch young Dillard
      if he can work for Burton he's golden
      but he could be out tomorrow

And new marriages are bartered for old-fashioned reasons

      If you want a direct marketing guy
      get a headhunter after someone at Time Inc.

Through it all
communities new and old watch and judge and make sure
the names are in order
and everyone understands


I've said it before: Growing up, I never wanted to live in a small town. I felt stifled in mid-sized suburbia, where each town flowed into the next until you hit the City. I could never have imagined I'd end up in rural America, let alone that I'd enjoy it! But the older I get, the more I'm convinced that all the world's a small town. Even in the biggest metropolis, you have your neighborhoods of intimate familiarity, the places you always shop, the faces you always see, the landmarks you've stopped looking at because you know them with your eyes closed. A congregation, a company, a neighborhood, a school.... Each of them is merely a variation on a theme, and just as much a small town as this burg surrounded by fields and farms. And all just as lovely.

See? It must be Spring. I'm beginning to bloom where I'm planted. ;-)


~RCH~