I’ve gotten used to the bend in the road. The car knows the way now…first a left, then a right, then a left and another left and the car and I leave the development together. It is exactly a year since we closed on this house and began making it our home. We concluded everything in the middle of a snow storm. The attorney made it on time; a journey of more than seventy miles north. I drove a mere ten miles in city traffic and was forty-five minutes late. It’s all about the snow and the swaying and the roads and the direction of the winds. Our attorney waited patiently at the large table along with the attorney from the construction company. We all met eventually and smiled and signed copious sheets of paper and it was done.
I climbed a mountain of snow in the parking lot. We drove home in the wet snow, searching for ghosts along the roads and watching for large unfettered animals in the fields.
The walls have had a year to settle. There are one or two wall seams between sink and plaster which suddenly stretched. The house breathes evenly now and I feel it in the air. She held her breath for at least eight months; afraid to believe she could stand in all of her newness. Around November, she exhaled slowly, slowly…then suddenly during the eleventh month, gasped, gave a slight burp and settled for good. Now and only now, I notice a slight crack in the garage floor, a small nail pop in the wall…nothing really, just a quiet message from the house. We three are in this experience together. Now I can paint and place nails and act with more intention and more permanently.
There is a new car in the garage; we’ve lived through a full bill cycle and the vagaries of Rochester Gas and Electric along with the realization of how cheap and plentiful water is in this state, this city by Lake Ontario.
Our new neighbor, a retired navy man disappeared during the winter but I suspect he will be back soon; chatting quietly with Eli on the front lawn as the two plot their summer yard shenanigans. I look out the morning room windows at the rotting pumpkins in the backyard. I hope they will spring magically into a pumpkin patch this autumn. A neighbor asked me if I gardened and I said no. I am willing to try my hand and that counts for something. I will make the land my own. I will make the house proud.
I turn to the front of the house and watch two men plotting together. They stand with weapons ready; a hoe and a rake. Two men contra mundum. The wind chimes bang up against the freshly painted porch post and I hear the other streets blossoming…
690 Saint Paul 