|
|
|
|
Erica's WLS Book He's History You're Not - Surviving Divorce After 40  |
For Darn Good Writing Ask Erica Architect’s Daughter “Manny, stop here and back up, there’s a house you should look at,.” my mom ordered from the passenger seat. We were a sad little threesome, my parents and me–the only child. My father was from a family of builders and architects, one of four brothers, all of whom were wealthy and successful except him. A dreamer, not a hard-headed businessman like his brothers, he spent his life feeling like a failure because he wasn’t in business for himself and never made any real money. My mom, a schoolteacher, spent her life feeling resentful that she had two children, me and him. I was an awkward, overweight kid, a bull in a china shop was what mom called me, who couldn’t be trusted around delicate things. I felt like a major disappointment to both my parents, especially my fashionable mom. I wasn’t sure how my father felt about me because he didn’t talk to me much after I outgrew my cute early years. I suspected he didn’t feel much about me at all. He never remembered what grade I was in or who my friends were or whose house I spending the night at. I used to joke about worrying he’d forget my name. Keeping track of my life was my mother’s department. My father was in charge of trying to stay employed and working on the plans for our future house. Their house dream came true when I was fifteen years old. My parents had bought a lot in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey many years before for a mere $5,000 and finally amassed the down payment to build a house on it. My father found an elderly European contractor who still had an old world attitude of taking pride in his work. I’d never seen my father so happy as during the time that house went up. Usually withdrawn and monotonal in his speech, he came to life while discussing such details as cabinetry and foyer design. My mother, whose enthusiasm for home decoration rivaled his, got to make all the decisions about the kitchen, and she came up with such innovations as a blender mechanism built into the counter, so all you had to do was insert the blender jar and flick a switch. A couple who generally agreed about nothing and bickered constantly, they worked happily and harmoniously on that house. I felt left out. I didn’t like the idea of moving away from the town where we’d lived for the past eight years especially since, after years of being an outcast, I’d finally found some friends. I’d been forewarned that my pet Scottie would not be allowed on the main floor of the house because he might ruin the carpet, and I was furious. I felt that my father loved that house more than me, and certainly more than my beloved doggie, whom I felt shared my identity. I didn’t understand his obsession at all. . I couldn’t see what was wrong with living in an apartment. I liked the one we lived in just fine. No matter. We moved into the house, which was, even I had to admit, breathtaking Even though it was rather nondescript from the outside, because the local zoning didn’t allow the kind of design my father wanted, and they couldn’t afford the redwood siding they coveted, on the inside it soared. The living room was 40 feet long with a two story stone fireplace and a small open room at the end, up a few steps, which showcased the Aalto chaise. They’d bought two Swedish modern couches, which sat catty-corner to each other facing the fireplace, and in front of them was a kidney shaped inch-thick glass coffee table, with a freeform base, that my father designed and had custom made. In the dining room, off the living room, was a huge white formica Knoll pedestal table, surrounded by delicate Aalto chairs. A few steps above the living room was a hall with a balcony that ran the length of the room, off of which the bedrooms were located. It was a perfect place to make an entrance, and when dates picked me up I tried to do just that. Unfortunately, my slovenly beatnik attire didn’t exactly match the elegance of my surroundings. My dates often did double-takes, and more than once I heard, “I can’t believe that you...live here.” The house and I did not get along. My dog went crazy and started biting people after being locked in the basement and I had to get rid of him. I couldn’t forgive my father for that. I was in the full flower of teen rebellion anyway, and I hated the house as much as my parents loved it. I moved out as soon as I possibly could, at nineteen, and never looked back. My parents stayed there, rattling around as they termed it because the house was so huge, finally moving to Florida and selling the house when my father became ill about fifteen years later. Even though I hated the house, I felt bad that strangers were going to take over my father’s lifework. My mother took the Alvar Aalto furniture to Florida and re-created the modern look in their condo, which was much-admired by their fellow retirees, all of whose condos housed the same cookie-cutter white squishy furniture and beige rugs. No one could believe we were actually doing it, least of all my mother, who nevertheless generously offered us to give us the down payment. She was widowed, my father having died ten years earlier. Escape from New York to a bucolic little town in upstate New York was a popular fantasy among our friends and acquaintances, but it wasn't something anyone actually did. Giving up a rent stabilized apartment was just too risky for most. So people reacted to our prospective move in tones ranging from awed to disbelieving. We got used to hearing either "How brave of you," or "you must be crazy." We felt both sentiments were correct. Not only couldn't we afford to buy a brand new house like my parents’ house, but we couldn't even afford to buy a house in good shape. We bought what our house inspector said might be called, if we were so-inclined, a "fixer-upper." Actually, considering our limited income and total lack of do-it-yourself skills, we weren't so inclined. My mom was horrified when she saw the house. She wasn't used to a kitchen that looked like it belonged in an Appalachian cabin. Not after her fancy kitchen with the built-in blender. She kept insisting that the kitchen had to be at least 100 years old. I told her that wasn't possible since the house was only 20 years old, but she refused to believe me. The real estate agent said our house was such a mess because it had been "abused." I knew children were abused, but who would batter a house? It turns out that the dread "renters," had done it. We'd been renters all our lives but we'd never been tempted to abuse our surroundings. These renters however had punched holes in the walls, loosened stair bannisters, and stolen the refrigerator. However, to my mind, the abuse was the least of it. Every room had wall to wall shag carpeting in bilious tones of green, mustard, orange and brown that made me nauseous to look at, a bathroom with navy blue wallpaper and black fixtures, a dining room with welfare hotel wallpaper and linoleum with large chartreuse flowers on it--not to speak of serious defects like an unvented attic (who knew an attic needed air), two inches of water in the basement, leaky skylights, a hot water heater that vented into instead of out of the basement, and a leachfield that didn't leach properly (whatever a leachfield was). But oh, what "possibilities" our house had. It was tucked into tall woods of maple and oak, had two-story (leaking) cathedral windows with a view of a babbling brook, and a lake across the road I could swim in. Who knew that the babbling brook was actually the overflow from the lake and in wet weather if we didn't clean out the drain every day the road would be flooded since the beavers plugged it up every night. And how were we to know that the charming dirt road that wound down a hill to our driveway turned into a solid sheet of ice in the winter and a series of axle-crunching potholes in the spring. All I knew was that I was in love. We were lucky to find Larry, a neighbor and temporarily unemployed carpenter, who came over every day the summer we moved, and fixed what needed fixing. At the same time I miraculously discovered within myself a talent and passion for interior design and decoration that could only be genetic. I confidently made decisions about furniture, flooring, window treatments. Our home started to take shape. It wasn’t the least bit modern–my tastes did not run to Alvar Aalto, but to country tables, pine floors and weathered sideboards. Mom gave us the money to renovate the kitchen because I found Craig, a old hippie master carpenter who was probably high on pot when he gave me a ridiculously low estimate for the job. He and I collaborated on designing a great room, with me acting as my own contractor, instructing Craig and other workmen to take down walls, lay floors, put in new windows, and install a wood stove. Once finished, our home was as breathtaking as my parents’ home had ever been. My mother was in awe. She told me she’d never have had the nerve to do what I did, making such sweeping structural changes. I felt like my father’s daughter at last. My mother died after we’d been living in our house for about seven years. I went to close out her apartment in Florida and had to decide what to take and what to sell. I sold the Aalto and Knoll furniture. I couldn’t imagine what I would do with it in our house and it was worth a good deal of money. But I couldn’t part with the kidney shaped glass table. I shipped it up to our house where it now resides, between our catty-corner flowered couches in the cathedral ceilinged living room facing the fireplace. Although it’s the only modern touch in our house, it proudly holds it own, standing out as the fine work of art is truly is. Every time I look at it I think of my father’s sense of accomplishment and pride in his house and am thankful that I finally got to understand how that feels. I’m also grateful that he got to realize at least one dream in a life filled with frustration and failure. I’ve accepted that neither my mother nor I could give him any real happiness. He had his house, and that had to be enough. (This essay is available for purchase)
|
|
©2004 - 2010 EricaManfred.com. All rights reserved. |
|
