Now that the summer is ending and the nights are getting cooler, my nesting instinct kicks in. I start to frequent home decor stores and buy way too many candles and other tchochkes in preparation for the winter, like a squirrel collecting nuts from Martha Stewart’s tree. Rather than a homey Country Living look, I usually end up with rooms full of what charitably might be called eclectic clutter, but at least the candles smell good.
I have lots and lots of plans for this house. It is the first place I’ve lived in since I got married that feels permanent to me, the way my parents’ house did. I grew up in perfectly ordinary, architecturally bland 1960s suburban bi-level, with three bedrooms, an eat-in kitchen, gold shag carpet, and fake panelling. There was nothing special about the construction, but, forgive the cliche, it was home. Over the course of our marriage, we’ve lived in four places before this one, but none of them ever felt more than temporary lodging on our way to somewhere. This place, though — as soon as we walked in, we both felt as if we’d gotten there.
The house dates from 1858, which means it stood here during the battle of Gettysburg, about 35 miles away. It is entirely possible that the family that lived here sat on the porch and listened to the distant booming of artillery. Up the lane is a small cemetery, where lie the remains of that extended family; the caretaker is a direct descendent and farms the field around it. One of the men buried there was killed during the Civil War. Sometimes, I sit on the porch and think about what it must have been like, hearing the battle so close and wondering if someone I loved was dying.
But that’s too morbid for the feeling this house gives us. It is comfortable and creaky and quirky, with rooms added willy-nilly and floors so uneven you could slalom on them. The windows sills are wide enough to sit on. We keep hoping for a ghost, but so far, no spooks, only an invasion of ladybugs over the summer. It will take years and years to do all the work we want to do, but that’s okay. We aren’t planning on going anywhere. And then, we’ll pass it on to the next people, who will paint and paper and build and make it their version of home.
Over a hundred years ago, Robert Louis Stevenson wrote about feeling this connection to other inhabitants of his own house. The co-owners here are animals, not human, but so what? The feeling is the same. (To save you a hunt for the dictionary, the word "whilom" in line 10 means "former.")
My House, I Say
My house, I say. But hark to the sunny doves
That make my roof the arena of their loves,
That gyre about the gable all day long
And fill the chimneys with their murmurous song:
Our house, they say; and mine, the cat declares
And spreads his golden fleece upon the chairs;
And mine the dog, and rises stiff with wrath
If any alien foot profane the path.
So, too, the buck that trimmed my terraces,
Our whilom gardener, called the garden his;
Who now, deposed, surveys my plain abode
And his late kingdom, only from the road.