A Pondering; This It Is, And Nothing More

Song of the Day: The Chain by Ingrid Michaelson

I've been thinking about books today. Especially because Emily came over and we were talking about how we really don't have furniture for our new place. I said "I have a bed and a bookshelf, so I'm set." I've still got books on my mind so I searched "books" on Tumblr and enjoyed drooling over the results for a bit. And every time there was a library with either ladders or spiral staircases, my first thought was, "Want."

In the event that I ever end up in a house instead of an apartment (which, with no husband or children, there's really no need for unless I develop a habit of throwing excellent Christmas parties), I don't have a picture in my head of what it should look like. But I know which bits of it I need.

Item 1: An Attic. I don't mean a maybe-three-foot-high crawlspace of rafters you can't step between, I mean an attic. With creaky floorboards and maybe a couple of teeny windows. Where I can put boxes of the photo albums I've yet to make and my old yearbooks; where my best friends' yet-unborn children can discover those boxes when they go exploring while their mothers and I have coffee. Their kids will ask us about the kids we went to school with, point to photos and say "Is that really you?" They'll ask about certain pictures and their mothers will ask me to save that story for later. They'll love looking through all those dusty boxes because by then I will have become the fascinating and ever-so-slightly-mysterious Aunt Emma.

Item 2: A Library. It doesn't have to be big and grand, and with my budget I really don't expect it to be. But I want a separate room for my books. Ceiling-high shelves with big-ish windows. Maybe a fireplace, too. And in the corner near the window, where there aren't shelves, a piano. A baby grand if possible. Actually, no. The books would deaden the sound. Budget be damned, the piano goes in the living room.

Item 3: A Big-ish and Very Well-lit Kitchen. Painted in light yellows and blues and/or greens that will magnify the natural light. Preferably the window over the sink will look out onto the driveway, so I can see when guests arrive. A small table (where I have my breakfast) is against the far wall under the bigger window by the side/back door. I don't know how I can see the driveway from the same room where my back door is located. Maybe I have a little land and the driveway is on the side of the house. That works, if the kitchen is in the corner of the house. The dog can have a pillow or bed in the corner close to the table; a spirited dog, like a corgi or a border collie. I don't think I'll get another German shepherd, I've already had one perfect one. There's a small television on the counter opposite the sink so I can watch the news in the morning and PBS at night, if there's anything good I don't want to miss while I'm cooking.

Item 4: A Porch. Preferably that spans the front of the house, however big that may be. On summer evenings I'll have friends over and we can play music. When Steph's kids are young I'll sit on the bench swing with them and read them Harry Potter. When they get older we can have coffee and talk about school or whatever they can't talk to their mom about; not that Steph won't be an awesome mom, but if her kids are anything like us, there will be some subjects that they just aren't comfortable discussing with their mother. When Lauren comes over we'll sit out there with wine and talk about how I always wanted a porch; we'll play chess and talk about her gallery opening next week. When I get old I'll sit there in a rocking chair with a bottle of whiskey and a rifle on my lap, just in case the neighbor kids start making trouble.

It seems silly to have all of that for one person. But really, the kids should have some room to play when they come over. And it's not that many rooms. The main/living room (which doesn't have to be all that big, really); my bedroom; the kitchen; the book room. Just four rooms. And I'm a small girl, the rooms don't have to be big. I could buy a hill and make all of this a hobbit hole. That would make the porch tricky though. Just four rooms. Five, if you count the attic. If I won the lottery, that's the house I would buy. Nothing big, I don't want a house where rooms go days without being used. My perfect house isn't fancy, but it's right. I want people who know me to walk in and think, "Yeah, this is Emma's place." And maybe my nieces and nephews and pseudo-nieces and -nephews will draw my house when the teacher tells them to draw their favorite place. They'll come visit me when they're home from college and say how much they missed this place.

I want them to have that place because I have that place. Cam's house. With the cartoon Godzilla rug and creaky stairs and loft that overlooked the living room; the book about the girl and the rabbit that I read every single time; the 5 cats that were named after Shakespeare characters and somehow never made the house smell like cats. The annual Christmas party when I didn't really know anyone but I listened to people say, "Oh, look how big you've gotten!" while I ate the peanut butter blossom cookies she made specifically for me. My Christmases don't feel quite right, not fully complete since Jim died and she stopped throwing the parties. Every year I hope she'll start it up again; but I think she may be out of the habit now. I'm going to call her. I need to see her again. I want to tell her about my life, everything that's changed and all the things that are still the same. I want to hear about her, too; the books she's written, the trips she's taken, if she's baked those cookies since the last party. I want to know if she remembers taking me to the Great Scoop so often that, as a four-year-old, I had a usual. Grilled cheese and then a strawberry-vanilla-swirl soft serve cone. I want to know if she knows how much I remember, and how much she still matters.

This has been a very long post. And it got very heavy very quickly. When I started typing, I didn't expect to end up mentioning Cam. I didn't realize how much I wanted to be like her, influence-wise, until I wrote it about a paragraph ago. Every kid should have an adult outside their family who loves them as much as Cam loved me. Because your family has to love you. And your friends are your age. To have someone older and wiser love you simply because they do is a really unique feeling that I've always taken for granted because I never thought about it before. I was really lucky to have that. And now I have to get up in just under 7 hours, and it usually takes at least one to fall asleep. Good night.

I'm really quite candid and unfiltered when I write, aren't I?

There are places I remember all my life / Though some have changed / Some forever, not for better / Some have gone and some remain / All these places have their moments / With lovers and friends I still can recall / Some are dead and some are living / In my life I've loved them all. -In My Life, The Beatles