MY

NE W
HOUSE

U pon arriving at our new house, my sister and I found a bottle of warm
champagne and two boxes of animal crackers, all joined together in the embrace
of a green and purple ribbon in front of the cold wood stove in the living room.
The former occupants immediately earned our love, trust, and gratitude. The
token gift meant less to our parents, who put the champagne in the fridge and
allowed us to eat the crackers on the spot.

I missed nothing of the old house, save for a handful of Lego figures that
mysteriously vanished from the front lawn. The day they disappeared, I spent
hours looking for them, sort of generic blue and red spacemen wearing simple
helmets and air tanks (or jetpacks, depending on the fantasy). I went inside for
five minutes and they were gone. I gradually slackened my hunt over several
months. Before we left the house, I made one final sweep of the lawn, hoping
for their miraculous return after a two-year absence. From time to time, I still
dream about losing and searching for these figures. I never accepted their
permanent disappearance.
The new house smelled of cat litter and unwashed dogs. It was much bigger
than the last house, with a pool and a backyard twice as large as the old one.
Beyond the backyard, a thick pine forest perfect for day hikes. A state
university owned and maintained the woods. It breathed in and exhaled my
darkest fears at night.

We brought no animals with us, though field mice had established a sizable
colony in the basement long before we arrived. They remained where they
were for the next 20 years and more. I am certain they will never leave. The
former owners of the house, husband-and-wife professors at the same

1
university that owned the woods, tolerated the smell of their dog and cats. It
is not known whether they tolerated the mice.
Inside, the house told stories of the recent past, adorned in the homely
browns, yellows, and oranges of the 1970s; a decade of autumn. The kitchen
floor, covered in brick-patterned linoleum, joined with stark brown
baseboard and fake wood panels that ran up to a cracked beige ceiling.
Though functional, the appliances were worn with use and abutted vinyl tan
countertops and exposed, scratched brick. Shag carpeting of multiple colors
in the hallways, living room, family room, den, and bedrooms, stopping
blessedly short of the
bathrooms, one of which
housed a black toilet and
black and silver jungle print
wallpaper. My parents
hated all of it and launched
a comprehensive gutting
campaign that would reach
its resounding conclusion
25 years later.

I liked the mysteries of the

place. The off-limits attic,
laden with enormous
cobwebs, wasp nests, and abandoned junk; dank, green-tiled basement; and
hot crawlspaces with loose insulation offered new and exciting hiding spots.
The heating system, as old as the house itself, creaked, popped, and hissed at
night, often without any recognizable pattern. Using a hypersensitive
microphone, an avant-garde musician could record a halfway decent
atmospheric piece from the heating system, perfect for highbrow gatherings
where the background music commands simultaneous attention and
dismissal.

My parents designated the surprisingly uncarpeted study for my room, which

contained two of my favorite features: 1) a giant-size cork board and 2) a giant-
size paper globe lantern. Framing these objects, a crude, floor-to-ceiling
wooden desk with an array of open cubby holes and matching aesthetic to the
room’s slate barnboard paneling. In fact, barnboard served as the principal
decorative template for the house, much to my parents’ shared displeasure.
Curiously enough, the former occupants had left behind many of their

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decorative touches, which consisted of several hyper-stylized ski and 1980
Winter Olympics posters in the basement, attic, den, and study, now my room. I
adopted the dated look as my own, organic fashion, which must have been
amusing for my parents, especially when I resisted each of their efforts to
replace old items in my bedroom.

During this time, I developed attachments to material objects, each with

demonstrable aesthetic or intrinsic value. Whether I knew it at the time, I
included trees in this category,
as they held intrinsic (climbing,
hiding) and aesthetic (pretty
leaves, etc.) value and felt more
like personal possessions rather
than independent, living things.
When my parents declared their
intentions to remove a number
of trees from the front yard –
and I really can’t blame them
anymore; the front yard was a
full-grown forest – I put up a
fight. As a result, they did it
little by little: an overgrown
hedge when I was eight; a minor pine tree at nine; the biggest tree in the yard,
and the only one I could touch the very top of, two weeks before my 11th
birthday. My sister and I moped around the house, talked back, refused to listen
each time they announced a new execution. Years later, after all the old trees
were gone, one gorgeous sugar maple remained – the perennial pride of the
front lawn. It was sick with some kind of tree illness. The tree specialists came
and tried to cure it but failed. They literally did everything in their power to
save it, but it was determined to die. My parents discussed the impeding fate of
the diseased tree with us on several occasions. They had to cut it down. Can we
just let it languish and die? No. Do you know what this tree means to us? Yes.
This isn’t fair. We like the tree, too, you know. That’s it, then? Sorry, kids. We
could not accept the tree’s fate as anything but another one of their aesthetic
executive decisions. There are now two young trees on the front lawn, one
cherry and one crabapple.
The improvements began in the downstairs bathroom with the removal of
the jungle wallpaper and replacement of the black toilet with a white one.
All of the carpets were ripped out in the first three years, exposing beautiful
hardwood that my sister and I could skate across in socks. Our parents tore

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down wallpaper with enthusiasm, with the notable exception of cartoon
whale print wallpaper in my sister’s room, and repainted inside and out. The
back porch, rotting for some time prior to our arrival, endured a progressive
eight-year gutting and rebuilding period. Two new carpets were added, one
in the family room and one in my room. The uninsulated den, also known as
the “cold room,” was used as a summertime gathering spot for two or three
years, though soon became an object dump. It was eventually torn down to
make room for a second garage slot, and thus a second car. My father
dismantled my desk and built a new one. We planted a vegetable garden in
the backyard and harvested tomatoes, zucchini, green peppers, squash,
potatoes, peas, and other legumes I’ve since forgotten. We kept up with it
for one season. No one ever touched the attic, save for a handful of trips to
unload extraneous objects.
We bought a dog that lived for 12 years. We replaced the carpet in the
family room after her death. I moved out. My sister moved out. Our parents
split up. My mother remained in the house. She hired people to finish the
back porch, repaint the house inside and out, open and close the pool each
season, and treat the lawn. She mowed the lawn herself. She sold things I
didn’t want anymore and didn’t miss. Within the next two years, my mother
will move out and other people will live in this house. It will become their
new house.

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