She's Leaving Home--Bye, Bye

Readers of a certain age will recognize the title of this blog as the chorus to a Beatles song. Nostalgia is my mood at the moment, so I'm playing and singing all the oldies.

In this particular case, the "she" who's leaving home is me. I'm about to leave my home of the past 42 years with its marble fireplace with walnut mantel, walnut crown moldings, multiple built-in cupboards (including a corner glass-doored china cupboard), wood floors, tall ceilings, big windows, spacious rooms --and outdated plumbing and wiring. My husband and I are in the last throes of decluttering and packing for our move to a much smaller house without the great storage and space of this one but without its problems, as well. As we pack up and pile boxes and bins, I know we've made the right decision, but I'm reminded constantly of the many great years I had in this house while raising my family. So, yeah, nostalgia.

I decided I wanted to take photos of the rooms before they were turned into stacks of boxes and stripped of their furniture. Of course, my tablet's excellent camera suddenly wouldn't work, and my cell phone's too old to have a camera. I refused to be thwarted, however, and took the interior shots with my laptop webcam (which is why they're blurry enough to pass as Impressionist paintings). For the record, though, I now have photos of my living room and dining room. (My arms tired quickly--it's awkward taking regular photos with a webcam--so my ambition to snap pictures of all the rooms quickly faded.)

Above, you see my marble fireplace with walnut mantel, as well as my quilt-covered old wicker couch and one of my spinning wheels. This is the middle third of our extremely large living room. The first photo is of the front of our house with part of the front-yard gardens. The next photo is of the front third of our living room with my big floor loom and another spinning wheel partially obscured by the boxes we've started piling in the living room. The loom and both spinning wheels will join my Husqvarna sewing machine in our new home.

The final photo is of part of the dining room with its big round wooden table and chairs and one of the two freestanding china cabinets in that room. The built-in one is in the breakfast room next door. Only one of these freestanding cabinets is going with us, but the table and chairs--as old as my time in this house--will accompany us, as well.

I will not miss the extension cord shuffle which all unrenovated-old-house owners do, of necessity. I will not miss the months of the year when it's simply too cold or too hot to work in my upstairs office/studio, even wrapped in wool shawls and gloves or stripped to underwear. Modern insulation and central HVAC have a lot to recommend them. I will not miss all the stairs. Most of all, I won't miss the constant sucking sounds as all the money I make goes into household emergencies like storm-damaged gutters or yet another plumbing disaster. (When you own a house, my child, water is not your friend.)

Still, this house has been the site of many holiday feasts for the extended family. It sheltered not only my two husbands and three children but two foster sons, a nephew, and at one time or another, all my brothers and their friends or wives, as well as my sister. We've had celebrations and parties. When my oldest kids were young, the teachers went on strike for a year, and this house became a schoolroom for most of the kids in the neighborhood. Every summer, it was kid headquarters as I kept the block's youngsters out of trouble by teaching them how to make butter, soap, candles, bread, cheese, baskets, and many other projects. That dining room table has seen so many home-cooked meals and craft projects and school homework assignments and science-fair projects and family council meetings that my family's DNA is embedded deep within the fiber of the wood. It's been a wonderful home.

Now, the time is right to move on to a more convenient, safer (no stairs for me to break anything more on), lower maintenance, and smaller place. I'm looking forward to it. But yeah, I'll miss the old girl as we drive off with the moving van. 42 years is a long time, and what warm, lovely years they've been!

Linda Rodriguez's Plotting the Character-Driven Novel, based on her popular workshop, and The World Is One Place: Native American Poets Visit the Middle East, an anthology she co-edited, are her newest books. Every Family Doubt, her fourth mystery novel featuring Cherokee campus police chief, Skeet Bannion, will appear January 17, 2018. Her three earlier Skeet novels—Every Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, and Every Last Secret—and her books of poetry—Skin Hunger and Heart's Migration—have received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin's Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices & Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. Her short story, “The Good Neighbor,” published in the anthology, Kansas City Noir, has been optioned for film.

Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International Thriller Writers, Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, and Kansas City Cherokee Community. Visit her at http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com