Dear Neighbor,
It’s February, the month that holds Valentine’s Day, dedicated to love. Let’s talk about the love of our surroundings.
Neighbors and neighborhoods start with houses, and I am blessed with all three. When I got divorced some years ago, the grueling but necessary processes claimed my life for the better part of a year.
Fortunately, dividing the spoils was relatively simple. We have wildly divergent tastes: He favors mid-century modern; I like old — bordering on the primitive — so there was no bickering about who got what. In fact, I think each of us was happy to be spared the other’s effects.
I’ve always loved old things. The first time an erstwhile boyfriend entered my house in St. Paul, he looked around and said, “The only thing missing is a velvet rope with a sign that says ‘Abraham Lincoln lived here.’”
My husband’s and my one item of contention, however, was the house. Again, our differences ran headlong. I wanted the house; he wanted its real estate value. We went back and forth, and finally I bought him out. The house, once ours, was now mine.
I’m not a warrior by nature but I’ll go to battle when my soul is at risk, and that’s how I felt. I wanted to keep the house for a number of reasons.
First, I’d loved the house since the day I entered it nearly 30 years ago. For sale? Not anymore. Built in 1930, it showed every year of its age. The original owners lived here for over 60 years and changed nothing. We were the third owners.
The second owners who lived here only a couple of years installed central air conditioning, had the wood floors refinished, and got things up to code. In other words, made it safer and more comfortable. Other than that, it was Welcome to Herbert Hoover Land!
I loved the woodwork, the textured walls, the weird nooks and niches, that it had a library, and the kitchen hadn’t been touched. It still hasn’t. My husband liked that it had the original screens and storm windows, a workroom in the basement, and a big garage. We both loved that it overlooks Cedar Lake.
I’ve often thought that if a burglar broke in, he’d look around, scrunch up his face, and leave. Nothing to fence here.
We raised our two daughters in this house, and those memories live on everywhere I look. Their visits now are seamless, and when they retreat to their respective rooms they’re comforted by the old bed, the old things, their childhoods revisited. The house is solid and, like all good things and relationships, solidness takes time.
As I write this, Los Angeles County burns. I am gutted by the visuals and even more so by interviews with people who’ve lost their houses, stammering and stuttering, as one does when in shock, barely beginning to absorb their monumental losses.
It’s excruciating to even imagine the pain that will haunt them most likely forever. I began working on this column days before the Southern California wildfires started, igniting in me compassion for all those who have suffered at the hands of nature’s arson.
I am moved by people whose houses were stolen by the fires who talk longingly of their neighbors and the community they once inhabited. History and loved ones — they’re what keep us going.
The final linchpin in keeping me here was, and always has been, my neighbors. After nearly 30 years, the friendships and kinship I have and feel for the people who surround me are irreplaceable.
Good neighbors, like all good friends, are our safety nets. Though we fly solo, there’s comfort in knowing that they’re there, that when we (invariably) fall, they catch and hold us before crashing. There’s also tremendous comfort in knowing that I am a strand in others’ nets and, when needed, I’m here and happy to provide whatever helps. My house and neighborhood are like Katharine Hepburn — aging with grace, wrinkles and all. Not everything needs a facelift, especially when the original is soulful and honest and solid.
How could I leave all this history? I couldn’t, and I’m grateful that I didn’t have to, but heartbroken for those who have had to lose their cherished homes and history.
For me, old houses, old things, old friends, and, of course, my daughters, are my historians and feed my soul. They bring me contentment.
And you? What are your sources of contentment?
— Dorothy
