Goodbye House

The little black house on the corner of Evelyn and Murdock is for sale. Over a hundred years old. Perched at the rear of a narrows. Shaded by a fighting sugar maple and a generous oak. Dawn chorus and also city sounds.

Modest house. “Weird art house.” Gentle good misfit house.

I want to convey what was real about my house in the same breath as all the efforts to renovate, paint, and strip myself from the house; it feels dire; I was my house; I have spent the past two months, with great help from my loves, bidding myself to leave.

Here, a story:

A woman, a poet, lived in a little black house with her son. They enjoyed chasing each other around the elliptical heart of the house. Heart included.

Micro peninsula-living between this neighborhood and that.

A park with swings nearby and a park without.

Like a lake bungalow — minus the lake.

Farmhouse sink.

Disclosures:

When you are more than 100 years old, there are only open secrets.

Disclosures:

Dana lives nearby with her family and so do the hawks.

Alice walks her dogs alongside nearly every evening.

When the Turkey Trot goes by, the neighbors will blast “Eye of the Tiger” for the runners and cheer.

Polarization meter reading:

2019: the house hosted a Black Lives Matter sign. A man stopped one morning to curse at the sign. So the sign stayed up.

On January 20, 2021, a woman in another house also stepped outside and two neighbors waved to each other in anxious relief.

Even more:

Divorce, Covid, Heartbreak, Remote Work, Hurricane Helene, Coming of Age, Spinster Fantasies, Teenage Poker, several screenings of “Stepbrothers,” one memorable screening of “Bad Moms,” a Bake-Off, Suburban Rewilding Fantasies, Bears, Loss, Friendship — this house played and rolled with all that didn’t.

People tend to leave you alone in your little black house perched on a micro-peninsula.

The porch is so big! I hosted an imaginary yoga class.

I changed; we changed.

Cloudspotting at sunset.

Maybe all you need know:

Only love’s company passed through.

All summer, a good dog slept on the cool dark stones in the bathroom.

SOMEONE STOLE THE BEAR-PROOF TRASHCAN.

Farmhouse sink.

Found in the house during the last sweep:

A ruined dark blue pen in the dryer.

A $100 Monopoly note.

Bobby pins (the woman drops them everywhere).

A pushpin from a baseball stadiums of America poster (the son’s room).

A book was written inside the house.

Inside the book:

If you tear down the house you won’t tear it down.

As is,

Elaine