Stardate 64935.8
Am clearing out my place so it can be renovated. I was persuaded to post something I thought trite and self-referential on this matter by Carol of Carol's Vault, a fantastic blog site on freeware and open source software (plus occasional excursions to other regions of the mind). Blame her. But, heck, this is a web log, right?
Now that my home is virtually empty I realize that the old trope "a house is not a home" is true. I've lived 30 years there. Now I'm finally getting rid of the museum of a family that no longer exists, which has surrounded me for a about a decade, I realize that the real charm of the place lay in those absent people.
Two boys jumping on a trampoline (yes, a trampoline!) in the middle of a living room.
A Mom pasting a verse from Proverbs on the back of the cubpoard door.
Two boys reading, or playing or working (ha!) on their laptops, next to each other on a sofa, without speaking.
A Dad spending a reading vacation on the balcony, devouring neo-Father Brown detective novels set in Detroit.
One boy building a fort in the living room (the trampoline gone); another in their bedroom. playing "music" capable of drowning out street-repair drills.
And on and on and on ...
Now only the Dad lives here. It's not so spectacular a place without posters and books and bunk beds and religious images and all that gone. Still, he's committed to moving out in a pine box. Where else could he live?
