* This came out of an exercise in which we gave each other a topic and a first sentence, at the writer's group that I have in St. Paul. Anyone who wants to know more about it can contact me at the email address in my profile on this blog.
The houses I like best are decrepit with holes that need filling, drips that keep dripping and wind gusts like whispers from ghosts still astir in the walls. Working on them seems to fill some inner need to put things right with one's world, make one's own space and move into it.
I remember back in the seventies a friend bought one of those old Victorian style fixer uppers designed for more then one and a half children that had survived without being divided into a multitude of flats till it lost most of its character, charm and who knows what else.
There were six of us that moved in to this semi-commune, semi requiem to relationships, semi rebellion against alienation and deconstruction. Six of us including the owner's wife marched valiantly to the task of turning this fine specimen of another time back into something that could be oohed and aaaaaahhhed at and fit our lives.
Our first project was to expose the brick around the fireplace--a working fireplace. Hammering at the wall, it was amazing that our inexperienced hands never landed the gauntlet on each other or ourselves. It was anger management personified. Dust flying everywhere, by the time that wall was exposed, even the face masks were exuding white powder with our breadth. Our hair powdered white and faces crusted and dried with dust, we were ageless or rather aged. You'd have thought we were a group of 90 year olds trying to gather the spunk to remodel a house.
We were not. We were in our 20's and 30's. The oldest of us being 50, and, by God, am I that age now. Yes sireedee.
When the job was done, we got up the next morning for a family style breakfast. We got up, but we did not strut out of bed. We limped and moaned and groaned, and you would have thought we were 90 years old, and thanked our blessings for one in the house who knew how to give a good massage and tried her best, even with blistered hands.
But, what was worse than a gallery of sore muscles was the dust. The dust covering everything in site, as if a cloud of some ethereal plasma was bringing it to the surface over and over again each time we swore we had scrubbed things down for the last time. It was months before that room let us own her.
Insisting on a new tile floor, she stretched our endurance. The old oak table we found in an abandoned lot was striped and refinished before it it sat in the center of the room, while logs danced in the fireplace bringing us warmth, but not more then the warmth in our hearts--a kind of warmth you lose in a throw away society.
The houses I like best are decrepit with holes that need filling, drips that keep dripping and wind gusts like whispers from ghosts still astir in the walls. Working on them seems to fill some inner need to put things right with one's world, make one's own space and move into it.
I remember back in the seventies a friend bought one of those old Victorian style fixer uppers designed for more then one and a half children that had survived without being divided into a multitude of flats till it lost most of its character, charm and who knows what else.
There were six of us that moved in to this semi-commune, semi requiem to relationships, semi rebellion against alienation and deconstruction. Six of us including the owner's wife marched valiantly to the task of turning this fine specimen of another time back into something that could be oohed and aaaaaahhhed at and fit our lives.
Our first project was to expose the brick around the fireplace--a working fireplace. Hammering at the wall, it was amazing that our inexperienced hands never landed the gauntlet on each other or ourselves. It was anger management personified. Dust flying everywhere, by the time that wall was exposed, even the face masks were exuding white powder with our breadth. Our hair powdered white and faces crusted and dried with dust, we were ageless or rather aged. You'd have thought we were a group of 90 year olds trying to gather the spunk to remodel a house.
We were not. We were in our 20's and 30's. The oldest of us being 50, and, by God, am I that age now. Yes sireedee.
When the job was done, we got up the next morning for a family style breakfast. We got up, but we did not strut out of bed. We limped and moaned and groaned, and you would have thought we were 90 years old, and thanked our blessings for one in the house who knew how to give a good massage and tried her best, even with blistered hands.
But, what was worse than a gallery of sore muscles was the dust. The dust covering everything in site, as if a cloud of some ethereal plasma was bringing it to the surface over and over again each time we swore we had scrubbed things down for the last time. It was months before that room let us own her.
Insisting on a new tile floor, she stretched our endurance. The old oak table we found in an abandoned lot was striped and refinished before it it sat in the center of the room, while logs danced in the fireplace bringing us warmth, but not more then the warmth in our hearts--a kind of warmth you lose in a throw away society.
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