Flash Memoir: The Rental

The Waiting Place

Welcome to another installment of Loss and Finding Home, a real-time flash memoir of the complete gut and remodel of our 1950s California ranch-style home. Answering the questions: What does it mean to be home? Who makes up a home? How do you build a home when there is always someone missing from the dinner table?

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Previously on… Loss and Finding Home: we celebrated Demo Day! We were at the point of no return. The house is a pile of rubble, and though we are scared, we are in it together. This week, I want to talk about my new roommate, a six-foot-tall mermaid.

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Hello Friends, 

We’ve been in a rental for almost two months now. The boxes are gone, and everything that has a place is in its place, but I’m not settled, and I’ve been trying to figure out why. 

Turns out, it’s complicated.

There’s the house itself, with its cave-like qualities, cold tile floors, and very little direct sunlight. It’s a quirky space and challenging to maintain, especially in this busy season of life we’re in where my dominoes are too close together. If I need to deal with a power outage or plumbing issue, I feel like my whole day is lost.

Also, because they are good friends, we let them leave behind a few personal items, including a six-foot-tall iron mermaid statue. I call her Airel. She sits with me in the dining room, where I do my writing.

I have everything I need, I’m safe, the shower in the primary bathroom is fantastic, and I can walk to several of my favorite restaurants AND my local Indy bookstore, but Ariel is a constant reminder that this isn’t my home.

I haven’t even hung pictures. The rental is temporary, and when I calculate the time it would take to make this into a space that feels like home, it doesn’t seem worth it. I see it as a layover on the way to our forever home, what Dr Seuss might call “The Waiting Place.”¹

And here is where I must state the obvious: grief. It’s an ever-shifting thing. Sadness, yes. Anger, sure, but sometimes, it shows up as a mild irritation like a rock in your shoe or a single hair pulled too tight in a ponytail. Aiden has never lived here, and that hurts.

In the old house, I had these picture boards a friend made for Aiden’s funeral leaning against a wall in the dining room. It’s one of those things I might not have moved for the next decade, if ever if we didn’t remodel. They aren’t fancy, just pictures taped to poster board, but they made me happy in a way scrolling through my phone can’t.

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House Call With Kate Arends

shared an excerpt from one of her paid posts, The Feeling of Lack and How it Keeps Us From Enjoying Our Homes.  

“Maybe you hate your kitchen, but you marvel at the incredible morning light. Maybe you lack storage space but are obsessed with the unique historical woodwork. Maybe you need to gut all your bathrooms, but that vintage tile color is gorgeous.”

Maybe I’m being a brat. Maybe Ariel isn't so bad. 

I read this from

decor8

and it made me think beyond what I can see. I lit a candle, and I’m never without my slippers.² I keep a blanket near my desk, and today, I moved Aiden’s poster boards to a spot where I could see them more.  

The most impactful thing I did was set up a play mat for Tatum. As babies, all four of my children played on a mat in front of the back door. They loved the natural light filtered through the trees in the backyard.

I re-created that space for Tatum with an old rug and a quilt over the top to make it softer. I set up some toys and put Tatum down on her tummy. She loved it, and since this house has an open kitchen, I can keep an eye on her better than I could in our old house. 

Also, this week, we made a few decisions about some of the finishes. We picked out a bathtub and some of the kitchen and bathroom fixtures. I know the foundation and the framing are important, but concrete, pipes, and wood aren’t that fun.

It felt good to get out of The Waiting Place and into The Doing Place. 

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My outlook on the rental is changing. Nick reminds me that a year from now, my cold feet and Airel won’t matter. With all that is going on in the world, I mean, come on… But sometimes, my trivial problems take center stage simply because I can actually do something about them, even if that something is to just let them go.

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A few weeks back, I read this from

You Are Doing A Good Enough Job

She is a writer and New Yorker cartoonist, and she shared an image? Drawing? Cartoon? (Sorry, I’m not sure what to call original art like this.) that said,

“It’s ok that your laundry isn’t folded today or tomorrow, so long as you looked out the window and said, WHOA.”

I thought, “Well, I can do that.”

This is where I am today. Thank you for listening.

xoxo,

Emily

Coming up… Speaking of foundations… (insert appropriate metaphor here) I want to talk about noise and mess and trying to stay friendly with your neighbors.

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Want to catch up on past installments of Loss and Finding Home? Here they are, U-HAUL, “I Was Here,” and Demo Day!

1. OH, THE PLACES YOU’LL GO was the author’s last book before he died and was published in 1990. This shocks me! I was eleven! Dr. Seuss is such a ubiquitous figure in American life I think of his books as always having been there, like the Oxford Dictionary or the Bible

2. Honey, if you’re reading this, new slippers would be an excellent Christmas gift.