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I’ve been pretty excited about the possibility of this new house.It’s about four blocks from my favorite coffee shop, and four blocks in the other direction from a three dollar movie theater. There’s a bakery nearby that sells tiny little muffins that taste more like biscuits and are stuffed with fresh fruit. It has a garage with big barn doors so you can do projects and feel like you’re outside.
I was feeling fabulous about the location and about the luck I had getting my bid accepted, and about all the possibility of such a new adventure. And then I talked to my mom.
My mom and I don’t talk often, and sometimes I forget why. I feel like I ought to want to talk to her. Friends are often surprised, given my general tolerance for and even attraction to difficult people, that I’m so impatient with my mom. They are right. They are right and I should do better and I know it. But every time I try to do better, it fails miserably. Case in point.
I call up my mom to tell her about the house. I call her at what seems exactly the right time: I have navigated all of the tricky steps in the homebuying process with, if not skill and grace, at least passable competence. I have found a house that is both a good match for me and a good investment. And in general I have done something expected and conventional – qualities my mom has been encouraging me to embrace for years.
I found a house! I say to my mom with enthusiasm. Yes? she responds with caution. And I remember that this is how my mom greets any decision I make: wary cynicism. I press on. Yes, a great little house. Little? she says. Yes, I say, very close to downtown. How much was it? she asks. And I tell her – a number at the low end of my range, a range I told her about months ago. A number for which one does not find a house in this neighborhood, ever. A number with which my friends in Seattle and San Diego and DC might be able, with luck and connections, to purchase a well-located parking space.
That much? my mother asks. She sounds surprised. I can’t anywhere in my brain imagine she’s surprised about how high this number is – since it is, after all, a house, and since I don’t live in North Dakota. I decide that she is perhaps surprised at how low the number is, which is the general reaction I have gotten from those who might be considered somewhat In The Know like, for example, my broker and my lender. It’s a fixer! I explain. And this is where the shaking lumbering conversation derails altogether.
A FIXER? she asks with horror. Have you gotten Estimates? On how much all that work is going to Cost You? Which actually, I have. It’s a lot more than she thinks. I mean, I haven’t even said the words “sewer” or “furnace” or, God forbid, “asbestos.” All I said was Fixer. Her horror is probably just coming from the thought that I might have to paint something.
How many bedrooms does this “fixer” have? she asks, and you can hear the quotes around the word fixer. Two I respond, naively, because that is, in fact, how many bedrooms it has. And because I have no idea of the gravity of this answer. No idea that this answer will bring about The Sound.
The Sound is her specialty. It’s kind of a deep grunt / sigh, summoned up from the depths of her tortured and weary soul. The rough translation of The Sound is this: “I hope you realize that through your selfish and stupid actions, you have contributed considerably to my perpetual suffering and eventual untimely death.” The Sound was my mother’s major at Jewish Mother School.
She pauses and makes The Sound again. Twice in a row is really quite exceptional – though it’s happened before, in response to phrases like “hitchhiking in Africa” and “my girlfriend.” I say, quietly, maybe we should talk about something else. She is speechless. Pause. More pause. Finally: Let me put your father on. And she hands off the phone.
And that there kills my house spirit. When I run into a friend the next day at lunch, I hardly want to mention it. It’s a fixer, I say while wincing. And he says: Of Course It Is.
Of course it is! What, like I’m going to buy some Pottery Barn house with carpets and landscaping? Like I’m going to buy some sprawling two-storey out at the end of the bus line? I hate living in big houses. I hate accumulating stuff and I hate dusting that stuff and I hate living in fear that people with less stuff will come steal mine. And I like tearing things down and rebuilding them. I like learning how things work. I like daunting projects that I have no idea how to start.
And it’s no news to the world but somehow it’s shocking how direct a line a parent has to what irks you. It’s just confounding, that someone who has known you so long can know you so poorly. And I wish I could find peace with that.
What I found instead was the home improvement section of Powell’s, and I sat there on the floor for two hours reading Plumbing for Dummies and the Black & Decker Complete Guide to Home Wiring. And fuck. I am psyched about this house.
posted by tortaluga @ 1:28 PM
7 Comments:
If you have not shrugged off your mother and that stupid conversation by now, post-blogging, I am going to come out there and shake you hard by your shoulders. I am SO happy for you and SO proud of you for buying the house and your whole attitude towards the whole thing. It was a goal and you did it. It will be an adventure. You rock.
I'm happy to have been a part of at least one adventure resulting in a phrase that elicited "The Sound".
It is the oddest thing how much of an effect the parents have through the years. But it didn't bring you down for long, and that's what matters. Good on ya! Have fun.
I just saw our entire childhood flash before me in vivid detail. Congrats on reclaiming your mojo- you are going to have the most awesome 2-bdrm fixer-upper out there. Next time Mom calls tell her not to worry about the renovations- your girlfriend is unemployed, has lots of time on her hands, and is quite handy when not high. Love you and congrats! E
God you'd be so bored if it WASN'T a fixer upper! that's what first houses are supposed to be!!!
And they should fit YOUR idea of what your life should be like, yours. So you can make your own SOUND when you put the key in the lock for the first time, and let yourself in to your own home.
I was at the hardware store looking at tools and dreaming of YOUR house. Funny, I used to dream of mine while walking through the power-tool section. I have your first tool picked out.
As an uneven reader of your adventures, I have to say that this is exciting news. Congrats, cuz! I'm psyched for you. Maybe you'll inspire me to move out of my own place and start looking for an abode as the SoCal market continues to cool down (hopefully).
Once again, that's fantastic.
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