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For
Saleby Elizabeth
Bussey Sowdal | |
What
you don’t want to hear from your real estate agent are the following words, "Well,
realistically?" What follows will never be good. Realistically? Your house is
a dump and you couldn’t give it away. Realistically? The mural of the Sack of
Rome in the boys’ room is not a big selling point. Realistically? The tiny hand
prints on the walls which you have carefully preserved since 1995 because they
are so adorable are not really. That adorable.
Realistically? The first
thing the New People are going to do is paint over your children’s growth chart
and make their own. Realistically? They will not see the 1937 Deco light fixtures
as Americana, as a whisper from the past, as beautiful. They will want new brass
and acrylic ones. Realistically? They probably won’t even bother to sell the neat
old ones, but are more likely just to chuck them.
Realistically? The New
People will not know or care about the beautiful spring morning when Mike sprinkled
flour on the ground in the shape of what was once a very fine koi pond and is
now a very large vat of algae. With huge fat koi for a splash of color against
the green. When The New People look at the pond they are likely to see a hazard
to the safety and well-being of their little children. Except that, realistically?
The real estate agent says that our house will probably be bought by a single
professional person – as opposed to a professional single person, which would
be a little different – or perhaps a professional couple. Meaning, of course a
couple of people who are professional in their professions. He says that they
will have "some longevity in their profession." He clarifies, "three to five years."
Making what Michael and I have at our jobs qualify as eternity. So, that was gratifying,
knowing that it was eternity and didn’t just feel like eternity.
Back to
my point, I wonder what a single person or even a couple without children might
want with this house. The room our daughters grew up in is perfect for two little
girls. There is room for two beds, two desks, a big dresser and a small one with
plenty of space left over to play Barbies or have a tea party with their friends.
The windows catch the afternoon sun in a way that seems designed specifically
to make halos of light around pretty little girls who have very few worries and
no big worries at all.
The boys room has a very funny L shaped closet which
makes absolutely the most perfect robbers’ hideout, foxhole, spaceship, cave full
of treasure, or more recently a place to hide an amateur attempt at mead brewing
from your (not quite as stupid as you think they are) mother and father. What
would a single person or a couple do with that funny little secret space? Store
mattresses? Humph!
The New People will very likely sand the few remaining
stains of yellow paint off the dining room floor and they will not know that there
was a day when 10 cubscouts and four mommies spent a thundery afternoon painting
birdhouses blue and yellow. They will not know that it was that same day Jim cried
in front of all the other boys and we never knew why, but have worried about it
off and on ever since.
That Professional Couple will not know that in
this dining room we had a champagne breakfast on my brother’s wedding day, that
we had a whole room full of girls doing each other’s hair and make-up for prom
and that I watched my tough-guy husband take off one girl’s nail polish with acetone
from the garage to avert a Nail Polish Crisis. They will not be able to even imagine
the intent and very sweet expression on his face as he did it.
They will
not think about all the turkeys that have been roasted in my kitchen, the number
of locust shells lovingly placed on a shelf by grubby little hands, the millions
of dandelions I have had in vases. They will not care about the hugs and the kisses,
the loud music, the laughter, the tears, the shouting, the silence after news
we could not bear to hear.
They will have their own noise and their own
silences. They will progress from saying, "the new house," to "our new house,"
to "home," to "Home" just as we did. And realistically? It’s time for that to
happen. I guess it’s time.
Here’s one last thing you might be interested
to know. Realistically? We’re finally getting new siding.
©
Elizabeth Bussey Sowdal
"The
Girl Detective's Theory of Everything"
June 15, 2007 Column
Bi-weekly
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