The House At The End Of The Road
Maybe one day I’ll buy back my grandmothers house.
The house on the cliff overlooking the river. Where you’d see bald eagles sitting in the pines from time to time, on the other side of the canyon.
It probably won’t look the same inside. The people living there in the interim will probably have got rid of the yellow shag carpets. Maybe updated some of the dark panelling on the walls. And it probably won’t smell the same. That inexplicable scent of bread and lanolin and things I can’t place. If ever I smell that smell again I’ll be thrown back in time to sitting on the shaggy floor of the living room, rearranging Grandma’s collection of brass bells, with Oklahoma on the record player and sunlight streaming through the windows.
I’m sure whoever lives there now has the yard looking lush and full of plants. That thought makes me happy. I’d keep growing things. I’d grow tomatoes in pots and make a new flower bed where the sandbox and swing used to be. The wooden swing my grandfather built before I was born. It was my most tangible connection to the grandfather I never got to meet, but I don’t remember how old I was when it finally was gone.
I’d get a croquet set and keep the wickets hung up in the stairs to the root cellar. Hopefully it won’t scare me to go down there but maybe it still will. When my nieces and nephews come to visit we’ll play croquet in the backyard and end with a water fight, using trash can lids as shields like we did when we were kids.
In honour of my grandmother, I’d fill the house again with art, and things that I’ve collected on my travels. I’d get a record player and even more bookshelves than she had, and put plants in every window.
I probably wouldn’t dust nearly often enough, but I would get a typewriter, and I’d sit at my desk and I’d write and write and create something beautiful because how could I not when I live in a house that has seen so much creation within it.
Maybe if I live in my grandmas house, even though it’s been so long since she’s been there, some of her energy will push me along. She was always making something, always, and if I want to learn to be like her, where better to do it than in a space that was hers.
My grandmother's house was cozy and charming and full of love and mismatched furniture. When I think of her house I think of warmth, and homemade bread with butter and honey, and Beethoven playing in the background.
Maybe one day I’ll buy my grandma's house back. I’ll make it cozy and warm, my own version of the home my grandma created. And then I’ll go outside, hang up a rainbow hammock at the edge of the yard, and settle down with a book.
But first, I’d call my mom.
The house on the cliff overlooking the river. Where you’d see bald eagles sitting in the pines from time to time, on the other side of the canyon.
It probably won’t look the same inside. The people living there in the interim will probably have got rid of the yellow shag carpets. Maybe updated some of the dark panelling on the walls. And it probably won’t smell the same. That inexplicable scent of bread and lanolin and things I can’t place. If ever I smell that smell again I’ll be thrown back in time to sitting on the shaggy floor of the living room, rearranging Grandma’s collection of brass bells, with Oklahoma on the record player and sunlight streaming through the windows.
I’m sure whoever lives there now has the yard looking lush and full of plants. That thought makes me happy. I’d keep growing things. I’d grow tomatoes in pots and make a new flower bed where the sandbox and swing used to be. The wooden swing my grandfather built before I was born. It was my most tangible connection to the grandfather I never got to meet, but I don’t remember how old I was when it finally was gone.
I’d get a croquet set and keep the wickets hung up in the stairs to the root cellar. Hopefully it won’t scare me to go down there but maybe it still will. When my nieces and nephews come to visit we’ll play croquet in the backyard and end with a water fight, using trash can lids as shields like we did when we were kids.
In honour of my grandmother, I’d fill the house again with art, and things that I’ve collected on my travels. I’d get a record player and even more bookshelves than she had, and put plants in every window.
I probably wouldn’t dust nearly often enough, but I would get a typewriter, and I’d sit at my desk and I’d write and write and create something beautiful because how could I not when I live in a house that has seen so much creation within it.
Maybe if I live in my grandmas house, even though it’s been so long since she’s been there, some of her energy will push me along. She was always making something, always, and if I want to learn to be like her, where better to do it than in a space that was hers.
My grandmother's house was cozy and charming and full of love and mismatched furniture. When I think of her house I think of warmth, and homemade bread with butter and honey, and Beethoven playing in the background.
Maybe one day I’ll buy my grandma's house back. I’ll make it cozy and warm, my own version of the home my grandma created. And then I’ll go outside, hang up a rainbow hammock at the edge of the yard, and settle down with a book.
But first, I’d call my mom.
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