I’ve gotten used to the bend in the road; the car knows the way now after a decade…first a left, then a right, then a left and another left and the car and I exit the development together. It is exactly 10 years to the day since we closed on this house and began making it our home. We completed the details with the lawyers in the middle of a snow storm. One attorney made it on time to the meeting; a journey north of more than 70 miles. I drove a mere 10 miles in city traffic and was forty-five minutes late. The snow and the swaying of the car, road conditions and the wind’s direction all contributed to my tardiness; our attorney waited patiently with the woman representing the construction company and we all eventually found each other in an overheated waiting room and signed copious sheets of paper and it was done.
Upon exiting the building, to celebrate I clambered up a mountain of snow recently plowed back over into the corner of the asphalt parking lot. We drove home in the heavy wet snow.
In a decade the walls have settled deeply. In the first year, there were one or two wall seams between sink and plaster which stretched suddenly and oddly. The house took her time breathing, seeming to hold in her air for the first eight months; afraid to believe she could stand firmly and steady in all of her newness. She exhaled slowly, slowly…then one day during the 11th month, she gasped, gave a slight burp and shudder and lowered herself down heavily on the foundation for good.
There was only one small crevice in the garage floor, a small nail pop in one of the walls…nothing really; just a quiet message from the house to us…that she was comfortable, content to rest if we were. Painting and mounting pictures with nails could now commence safely.
A new car in the garage, and then a bright red pick up truck; we’ve lived through a decade of bill cycles, and the vagaries of Rochester Gas and Electric, along with the realization and gratitude for cheap and plentiful water in this state located by the banks of Lake Ontario.
Our neighbor, a retired navy man disappeared during the first few winters but came back in the spring, chatting quietly with Eli on the front lawn as the two plotted their summer yard work. The pumpkin patch I attempted early on remained a heap of rotting pumpkins, never showing willingness to spring into fresh new pumpkins. A neighbor asked me if I gardened and I answered truthfully, ‘No’. But I was willing to try my hand at it and that has counted for something. We made the land our own. We made the house proud.
I watch the two men plotting together in the front. They stand with weapons ready; a hoe and a rake and a jauntily placed cap of some sort on the head of my husband. 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 