Home Is Where You Make It

I don't know about the rest of my crew, but for me, the move became real when we moved the tree.

With the help of dear, and longsuffering, friends, husband got our young apple tree - planted in my Dad's memory three years ago - dug up, moved to Mom's, and replanted. So far (cross fingers and knock on wood), tree is ruffled and highly indignant and not likely to bear this year, but she shows every sign that she will not only survive, but thrive, in her new location. Moving is a shock to the roots and system, for trees and humans alike...but if she can do it, so can we!

And now, there is a gaping hole in the yard where the tree used to be. The rest of the plantings - the rosebushes, the strawberries, the odds'n'ends - have been at Mom's now for some time, and the land around our house looks bare and strange. Already, this isn't "our" house anymore. Bit by bit, as clutter gets hauled out and books/odds/ends get dispersed among friends and the pile for the yard sale grows ever higher and deeper, this brick-and-wood-and-plaster shell that we've called home for three years is reverting back to being - to us - just a house.

I've moved a lot in my lifetime. It ain't fun. But it's taught me that "home is where you make it". Lovely old home, starter apartment, or shared/resculptured space with Mom, home is where your family is. Home is where you're safe. Home is where you come to at the end of the day, flop down, enjoy whatever creature comforts you enjoy, let loose and let down and just be yourself.

Home is where you Are.

As attached to our current house as I was, I expected to have a harder time letting go of it. And yeah, it twinges a little bit - I'll miss the woodwork, I'll miss the radiators, I'll miss the high ceilings and big rooms, I'll miss the grand old un-fussy comfortable personality of this "big old house".

But, much as I've loved living here, it is - in the end - just a house. And already, I feel myself detaching from this just-house, and looking ahead to the "something better" we're all looking to gain from this sacrifice.

"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree." -Martin Luther-

A Little Therapeutic Violence

With the onset of spring weather (thankyouJesus!) comes a task as oddly therapeutic as it is daunting: moving the plants.

When we moved into our house three years ago, we put in a young apple tree and two big rosebushes. Over the next couple of years, we added five more rosebushes of varying types and sizes, plus a blueberry bush, a butterfly bush, and a small-but-quickly-growing strawberry patch. And two clematis vines.

Mom's yard is (a) large and (b) almost entirely grass; she and Dad were never really into the whole gardening thing. She's only too happy to have more pretty things (and less grass) in her yard, as long as she doesn't have to take care of them; so, we're transplanting. Everything. Yes, even the tree. Y'see, we planted that tree in memory of my Dad. Cancer got 'im three months after we moved into our house. So, even though it's gonna be a BEAR to dig up and move, and we're gonna have to rent a truck to do it 'cause I don't think it'll fit in a Saturn (!!!), the tree comes.

Meanwhile, last weekend we got all but three of the rosebushes up and out and transplanted; the remaining three are on tap for this weekend, and the tree next weekend (yes, that's Easter weekend...oddly appropriate, somehow).

I'm not sure how I learned to like gardening, but I do. While I get husband to help with big stuff (like the tree), I do all the rest of it myself. Something both violent and therapeutic about driving a big ol' shovel into the ground, heaving out the dirt, digging around roots by hand with a trowel, and let's not forget, slinging 40lb bags of fertilizer around the yard. (I was wondering how the conversation would go if I was stopped by PA's Finest last weekend: "Your trunk's riding a little low, what's in it?" "Five rosebushes, four strawberry plants, a blueberry bush, a butterfly bush, and 240 pounds of cow poop, Officer, care to take a look?" "Never mind...never mind...just...move along...")

I like getting dirty. I like feeling the soil on my bare hands. (I do wear gloves when handling cow poop, though.) I like looking beneath the surface of things and seeing all the roots and all the earthworms and all the bugs doing their thing. I feel very connected to life, to the pulse of the planet. I understand, when digging around in the dirt, the wisdom in the story of Genesis 2...where God physically came down onto this planet, got on hands and knees, scratched about in the dirt, made a mudpie, gave it a little CPR, and so created the first human. Two parts mud, one part God-breath. And we, made in God's image, garden after the same fashion, with a little love and a little wonder and just a little therapeutic violence. Shove that shovel into the ground, pop that bush out, roots'n'all, and move it. Bit of a shocker for the poor thing, but it'll do better in the end.

Breakin' It Down, Buildin' It Up

The other day Mom came over. We went through our house, room by room, and flagged the things of ours that will be taken with us and incorporated into her space to make it "our space", collectively. We also designed the kids' bedrooms and the "man lair" that will occupy the to-be-finished portion of the basement.

Daughter's room will be a pale lilac color with one wall accent-painted a (slightly!) bolder shade of purple. With her own furnishings, a couple throw rugs, and some new curtains, it will be "hers" very quickly and easily for just the price of some paint and fabric.

Son's room will be Pittsburgh Penguin/hockey themed, with a bit of Nascar and Star Wars thrown in. His walls will be a pale gold and he'll have some black wall shelving for his cooler display-worthy stuff, plus a pegboard kinda deal to hold/display his goalie gear. "That's not scuffed pads, that's...Functional 3D Wall Art!" :D

Our current living room furniture, most of it at least, will go in the man lair - a big comfy couch, equally comfy big chair, TV & stand, and a coffee table, plus some lamps and shelving. The entertainment center will go upstairs and replace a smaller tower-type thing that Mom currently uses as...well...an entertainment center. We will be finishing the basement "man lair" in stages. At first, we're going minimal: white paint on the concrete walls, Sunday School Classroom style; carpet squares for the floor, a couple of outlets, something to dress up the bare-bulb lighting, a space heater to help the furnace out a bit down there, and folding doors to block off the man lair from the storage/laundry area. In time, we might do a bit more in terms of wall work, but the idea is to create livable space quickly and cheaply...and for Penguins fans, the "igloo effect" of white-painted cinderblock is actually a draw, so no worries!

Mom always wanted pictures for her stairway wall, and now she'll have 'em. Our family photos will go there. We've also got some things we really like - a framed Last Supper portrait, a hand-carved wooden cross and other very special gifts from a very talented woodworker in the old church, other artwork and knicknacks, kitchen things. A beat-up old mug with a broken handle that's precious beyond all reckoning to husband, because his mom (rest her soul) used to make tea in it for him every morning. I make it now, but I use the same mug.

It's the little things like that, that really make a home. Furniture? Clothes? Household junk? feh, it comes and goes. But all our little "things" - those are tough to sort through. I can just see myself at the monster yard sale: "To YOU it's an ugly plantstand growing out of a gnome's head; but to ME, it's love, baby, pure love!"

Time Capsules

Next frontier after closets: kids' rooms. Here it gets a little harder as I find bits and pieces of practically every toy under the sun, and a few under the moon. Does this 2mm white plastic thingamabob go with the Star Wars Super Mega Stormtrooper Transport And Salad Shooter? Or is it from the Hot Wheels Race 'Em Chase 'Em Loop O' Icy Dino Death Track? And for goodness' sake, is there ANY Littlest Pet Shop daughter didn't collect a couple years back?!?

It's those 'couple years back' toys that are the worst. The Time Capsule toys...things son and daughter outgrew long ago, but I haven't quite been able to bring myself to let go of because of my memories of who and how they were when they played with them. You see a naked, ballpoint-pen-tattooed Barbie Doll with frustration-pencil hair, or a scotch-taped heap of mismatched toy pieces and construction paper with crayoned scribbles; I see a four-year-old sprite spinning whole alternate universes out of her head, or a six-year-old boy's mammoth (and fully functional) homemade racetrack. Like breadcrumbs in the forest, kids leave these small evidences of who they've been on the way to who they're becoming.

And it's hard to be the bird, y'know?

The saddest line in the Bible: "When I became a man, I put away childish things."

Holy Laundry, Batman!

Whatever scientist it was that 'disproved' spontaneous generation, didn't live in our house.

A few weeks ago I spent a full, dedicated weekend doing NOTHING but laundry and sorting through clothes. Stocked the Goodwill, practically.

This morning I went down to the basement and there, on the nice, big, formerly VERY CLEAN laundry table, was a huge, leering pile of yet more laundry. I could swear I heard it chuckling evilly: "Muahahahahaaah!"

Where'd it all come from?!???

In other news, tho', awesome SIL and Mom are both on board to help w/the Monster Yard Sale in June. Be nice to make a buck, nicer yet to see stuff we haven't further use for becoming useful to others. Now if I can just get past packrat instincts..."No, wait, I know I haven't looked at, touched, or even remembered I HAD this doohickey, but I might NEED it someday!"

sigh.

Setting the Timeline

Game plan is to make the move around late June - four months hence. There are roughly eight gazillion jillion details to be navigated. Not a moment to lose; but if we work steadily, it shouldn't be overwhelming.

Gotta get our house prepped and listed. And downsize like 90 percent of our stuff. Good thing our neighborhood has a H-U-G-E standing yard sale every early-June!

Gotta get Mom's house configured for the new arrivals. Besides a little downsizing/cleaning/painting, the biggest job will be finishing part of her basement into a "fully functional man lair" - someplace Husband and/or Grandson can sprawl about on old comfy furniture and play video games, watch hockey, sort sports cards obsessively, and have all their sports memorabilia. Won't take much to finish the basement; it's clean, dry, and squared-up, just needs a little cosmetic work, a couple of outlets and some cable. Boys get their space, Mom gets value added to her house, win-win.

Gotta do a lot of things. I started, this past week, with closets. A few dedicated hours, a big payoff in terms of work done that you can see and that actually helps with the rest.

Trash guys are gonna love us. Got like seven bags of garbage outta those closets. Where's it all come from?!?

The Decision Is The First Adventure

It's all in the wording. "Combining households" vs. "Moving in with Mom."

"Moving in with Mom" carries a stigma, an air of regression and defeat. Couldn't make it out in the big bad world, had to turn tail and run home to Mommy and be a big overgrown kid again. It invites, to the overly-fertile (and overly-critical) imagination, a horde of imaginary yuppies with Seussian-distorted faces who circle around you in your dreams, dancing and chanting: "LOSER! Loserloserloser! Loooooo-zerrrrrr!" It also invites trouble, setting up all kinds of grounds for an unhealthy situation and dynamic from the word Go.

"Combining households," on the other hand, sounds both more challenging and more inviting. It acknowledges the realities of problem sets and families working together to solve them. In our case, the problem sets are both economic and familial. Recession's bit us and Mom both in the pocketbooks. Managing TWO four-bedroom houses between us is doable, so far, but increasingly unwieldy (that is, if we ever want to do anything "more", like rebuild nest eggs or send kids to college). Meanwhile, we're scrambling to balance between providing adequately for the children and being around to actually care for them, while Mom spends too much time "home alone" and lonely. Combining households invites Husband and Daughter and Mom and Grandchildren to all sacrifice something in hopes and faith of gaining something better.

The decision took months to come to and most of it was semiconscious, tracks we'd all followed separately and at the right time, boom, there it was, out in the open.

Could we do this?

Financial arrangements were easy enough to come to. Everyone'll come out significantly to the good. But the real questions were more subtle. Could Mom stand having us around all the time? Could we ever feel "at home" in the house that was once Daughter's home, but hadn't been for twenty years? Could we function as a three-generation household, navigating the questions of authority and undercurrents of family dynamic? Could the kids adjust to new schools, even if they are just moving 30 minutes away and could still see their current friends? What about Brother-And-Family, would they feel "pushed-out" or "second-best" or otherwise out in the cold?

It came down in the end to a cost-benefit analysis of the non-financial aspects. Could the social and familial benefits of combining households outweigh the costs? Was it worth it to Mom to have people around, to have grandchildren, a little life and noise and color back in her very quiet life again? Was it worth it to the grandkids to have Grammy around along with Mom and Dad? And what of the benefits to Mom and Dad?

We knew right well that it's countercultural and even considered weird to voluntarily combine households. To trip and fall backwards into it because of a sudden home loss or catastrophic illness is one thing; but to choose it, when Mom's still in good health and doesn't "need" people around to take care of her, when the sheriff isn't banging on the door and we don't "have to" move, when it's a good but not necessarily only option...

Yeah, it's weird. And some people will probably wag their tongues and shake their heads and say, "They're crazy!" or "What losers!" or "It'll never work!" Well, guess what. Speaking only for myself, as Daughter, I say: I am so over worrying about what other people think. It may not work - and if it doesn't, well, there's other housing out there and we can always move back out again.

The others involved can post their own seeings, but here's what I see: I see a chance to take better control of our own financial future while helping Mom out a little at the same time. Moreover, I see a chance to better know, love, and appreciate our only remaining living parent/grandparent. I see a chance even to help the environment by not spreading out five people across TWO big 4BR houses with all that carbon footprint. I see a chance to shed a lot of physical and psychic baggage and, in a sense, "start fresh".

I see a challenge and an adventure and an unforeseen, yet interesting and potentially even God-blessed, bend in the river. Decision made, let the work begin.