A house is an entity. It has an energy, a life. It has also a distinct feel, albeit changeable. The events of life, the real things that occur behind it’s walls, sometimes make the most dramatic impressions on the feel of a house. The simple passing of time, however, is the one thing no house can escape nor remain unchanged by. Families move in and out- a house is always changing.
Of course, it’s a very personal thing, the feel of a house. What might be, to one, a warm, welcoming place of solace filled with happy memories might to another be an empty place with no significance beyond mere shelter.
There is only one house, of which there has been a great many in my life, that I have ever spoken to, ever felt true remorse at having to leave behind. Curiously, when I think of this house, it is the parting that I remember first. My hand on a wall- a simple wall in an ordinary front hall. Covered, floor to ceiling, in dry, yellowing paper adorned with Southern style plantation houses and wispy trees lining grand entries. I always thought it an odd choice for a farmhouse in Maine. I wondered, who picked it? Was it the lady of the house? Was she young or old? Did she choose it because she loved it, or because there were few choices? Perhaps she came from the South? For the three years that I lived in it, and I admit to this day, I wonder about that paper in the hall.
Rooms now empty, voices gone. Another family passed through. Care was given here by my parents, to rebuild what was decaying, to polish what had dulled. Some might call that care love. And why not love a house? Sometimes it loves you first. The idea not your own, but something that simply overtakes you. An old house has stories to tell about itself. My house had burned boards in the attic, photographs and yearbooks left behind, pictures on the wall quietly marking the years with a dirty outline. In a space beneath the stairs we found check stubs and letters. But the greatest find of all was a name and a date scrawled across a wood beam. These are things a new house cannot share, simply because it’s life has been so short.
These stories, half told, excited my imagination as a young girl and endeared me to this house. They are what caused me, on that last day, to linger after everyone else had gone out. To put hand to fading paper, still reflecting on the life of this house, and say, as if to an old friend- goodbye.
