Truman Builds Houses

 The inspiration for this poem is Truman's months-long obsession with houses. What are you drawing, Truman? House. What are you building, Truman? House. He's two and our home probably feels like his whole world. But I can make a metaphor out of anything so it also feels like the genius of childhood, recognizing how essential feeling "at home" is for our happiness, and how innate the craving for home in our understanding of love, of God. Making our house Truman and Johanna's home continues to be the joy of a lifetime.

Sometimes his blocks are unsteady, built for speed

but even the tower in Pisa began its days straight.

It was one of his first perfectly-formed words - House

His voice confident, powerful, small, and yet, great.

He builds slowly when it suits him, when the day feels easy

When the ground is solid, the air warm, houses are pure joy.

Sometimes it is daddy's house, mama's house, rarely sister's

He is an architect, an explorer, a destroyer, a little boy.

What shape a house takes when its creation is delight

When the beams lean against the hips of a mother

What comfort warps itself into these spaces, these sturdy and less sturdy walls

When the hand that shapes them crafts only life, only love, only color.

What a gorgeous, Godly world it could be if he built it

All passion, joy, hilarity, and the "watch Mama" yelled loud

How lovely a seat for Jesus, for Esther, for David, for Mary

All welcome, all laboring, all celebrating, all marveling in Truman's house.

Castles on the Wall

The Castles hung in his den, which we rarely used. They hung in the room we awkwardly crowded into years ago, that first Thanksgiving after his diagnosis, when we weren't sure how much time we had but we worried the time we had was short. It was too formal a space for our typical Thanksgiving banter and debate and storytelling and worry. But it felt like the room we were supposed to be in.

If I ever noticed the Castles before he died, I don't remember that moment. They're a striking pair, beautifully framed, original paintings of castles to which we have no familial ties. Perhaps he mentioned them to me at some point, asked me if I'd ever been nearby, seen them in person. I'm not even sure if they still stand, perhaps the paintings themselves are pictures of ghosts, Cornwall must be bursting with not-important-enough-to-maintain castles.

We wandered the house after he died, knowing that every thing in its place would soon not be in its place any longer. Couldn't we just keep the house a bit longer, just let it rest, let it miss him? The half-hearted pointing and, "yeah, I guess that might look good in our second bedroom" rings so loud, achingly hollow. I don't want the damn end tables, I want him here. But I guess if they're just going to be sold to someone who doesn't know who they belonged to, hell, yes, I want them.  At least I know where those end tables sat, wooden bookends to the couch we all loved. I know the (not my style) lamps that sat on top of them. I know whose crossword puzzle was tossed there.

I have always been surrounded by him here.  When I bought the house he sent me gorgeous, impossible to fit anywhere mustard colored chairs, a blue ceramic lamp that now sits beside my couch, a mirror that probably cost more than our bed. On birthdays and when I got married he filled the house with pots, pans, kitchen gadgets. Even our collection of coffee mugs has his imprint. Knowing my husband's fascination with Waffle House, he gifted him with a holiday Waffle House coffee mug for Christmas. The thought in that mug still destroys me. I keep it tucked in the back of the cupboard so its presence doesn't wreck me unawares on a Tuesday.

But those things were deliberate gifts. He touched them, decided they were ours. The Castles are only here because I chose them. They are beautiful, and they watched us eat Thanksgiving  turkey, heard our prayers for healing (and for each of us, if not out loud, "if he can't be healed, Lord, at least give us more time than we deserve"). They're prettier than anything else we own on these walls, they're more sophisticated than we are, and they do not belong here.  They belong in his house, in the room we didn't use.  They should be hanging on those walls, an occasional conversation piece but largely forgotten, pictures of ghosts.

They will never be my Castles. They are simply more than I find myself desiring, they're lovelier, older, more impressive than I'd elect. And that makes sense, because they belonged to a man who was more than I deserved. More faithful, more generous, more loving, more kind. And while his choice in art was more classically lovely than I'd choose for myself, he also gifted us with Waffle House mugs, so the pretty inherent in all of his things holds little pretension. The Castles now hang just above our dining table. We don't have a room that goes unused because this home is 890 square feet. There is no den to tuck the prettiest of things, even the prettiest of things have to mingle with the hand-me-downs and Target clearance in this house. But they hang where we pray before supper. They hang where I sometimes work from home, laptop angled to the windows. They hang where we host friends, where we make decisions, where we lay out our passports before traveling. They hang where we live and their prettiness fits in well here, in our new Life Without Uncle Buck. It's a life that misses him, speaks to him, hears his "hey sweetheart" so damn clear, and it's a life that now has Castles on the wall.

Heirloom

Over the last couple of years I've lost my last remaining grandparents.  As the matriarchs of their respective families, their deaths have brought with them the tidying up of homes, categorization of shoebox pictures, exploration of trinkets and recipe cards, and the divvying up of all of the above. Homes and land were sold, and the piecemeal sediment of their lives has been buried, tossed or scattered to new caretakers in the family and beyond.

A few weeks ago I invited several dear girlfriends over for lunch for the purpose of hosting loved ones around a table decorated with some of those heirloom items.  I inherited my Great Aunt Maryann's china years ago and its delicate blue flowers have been packed away in yellowing newspaper dated for my 20th birthday (deep into the Bush-Gore Florida recount, for those curious). I paired the plates with the crystal I inherited from my Grandmother, goblets for water and sparkling dessert ware. I served tea sandwiches, crusts removed and cucumbers smeared with herbed butter, on milk glass from my Great-Grandmother.

The lunch was quiet and kind, littered with laughter, prayer, clinking of wine glasses, and soft tears. Loss was fresh and ongoing to several at the table, and sometimes that rawness was palpable. Not uncomfortable, but a sort of throbbing warning that hearts nearby are vulnerable, newly wounded. I don't doubt that has frequently been the case for those around my table, and that it will not be the last, but I was buoyed by the memories of the women who cherished these beautiful things, knowing the sisterhood inherent in the drying of tears over crackers and egg salad. It's a gentle and unconquerable love.

The lunch was planned early in the year, scheduled weeks before one loss and in the midst of the other. It was simply a date that worked for all, communal crossed fingers that the weather would not do us in. While chopping and toasting and plating our meal in the kitchen, the day felt tenuous, balanced perfectly on the edge of various seasons for each of us. I was struck by how deeply painful, how horribly unfair life could be sometimes, how frequently we walk around with our wounds fully exposed to the elements. But at the same time, these sweet moments together, unwrapping scarves, knocking snow from our boots, pouring wine, squeezing shoulders and hands, the gentleness of those gestures and the fervor with which we want so desperately to love each other through the messiness of every wound, that felt like God. God deeper than, and yet sensitive to, the ache in every heart.

And I think that's what makes these heirlooms, the ring I wear of Mamaw's, the crystal I use for special occasions, the china I unwrap from aging newspaper, so heavy with import for me. I do not know every heartache experienced by the women before me, but I know that they loved well, that they took care of their sisters, their friends, often at a table. I know that they prayed in the midst of loss, teased a smile out of heartache, and dried a million tears in their decades on Earth, and I like to think that some of that comfort, a lot of that laughter, occurred with these plates, these glasses, sitting on tables in Texas, South Carolina, Arkansas. They can carry the weight of life, and they can hold the memory of more tears, more joy, more laughter for years to come.

Cabinets

Now that I've painted the cabinets Ultra White and the the walls varying shades of French Pastry, Pumpkin Cream, Porpoise, and Gentle Rain, I can fess up. While I'd debated buying a house for several months, I pulled the trigger for only one reason. My heart was hurting and I needed something new and big into which I could channel all my angst. I needed to do something on my own to remind myself that I could be happy doing such a thing, just in case that's what the rest of my life looks like.

I don't recommend Buying A House as a form of post-breakup retail therapy. It's mildly irresponsible (maybe super irresponsible but I'm cutting myself some slack) and a lot more work than buying, say, an inappropriately priced pair of heels. That being said, while the timing of my decision may have been inspired by heartache, the result has been invigorating.  The work has not eliminated the sadness, but it has put it into context. I have been sad before. This time, I get to be sad in a house with Things To Do.

I always read (and write, but nobody's seeing that!) poetry when I'm sad.  And there are a handful of poets that I reread in certain moods.  Emily Dickinson's A Not Admitting to the Wound is a pretty fantastic I'm-sad poem, in part because I get a bit Dickinson-esque in such moments. I want nothing better than to sit in some corner with my tea and my notebook, pencil scratches the only sound in my head. My extroverted, optimistic self turns inside out, all exposed nerves and skepticism. But this poem doesn't just feed the sadness, it builds a room for it, nails it in, reminds me that God sees it, loves it, and will, eventually, make use of the scar.

A not admitting of the wound (1188)

BY: EMILY DICKINSON

A not admitting of the wound

Until it grew so wide

That all my Life had entered it

And there were troughs beside -

A closing of the simple lid that opened to the sun

Until the tender Carpenter

Perpetual nail it down

I've read that poem a thousand times in my life. It sounds like a slow, steady heartbeat to me, in the midst of moments where my own heart feels shaky, prone to skips and jumps. And as I drilled holes in my wall to attach a bookcase, or reattached cabinet doors one painful screw at a time, I heard the "tender Carpenter" so often, encasing that heartache in a sturdy box, gently asking me to hand it over. And in so many small moments of joy, minor victories of home ownership, I wondered if maybe, irresponsible purchasing decision or not, this might have all been part of His plan. He knew about the heartache, and he knew I'd need a house, a hammer, some cabinets in need of attention. This house. These cabinets. Emily. And a tender Carpenter, always.