With the advent of spring, a few weeks back, the flowers began blooming and the ivy began creeping. As the season gains momentum, so does the ivy. It’s fresh and bright . . . it’s waxy green and shiny . . . it’s a little bit sinister as it creeps toward the door. We are being enveloped!
We are, each of us, a product of place, so sometimes our environment creeps into our psyche more than we care to admit–I was reminded of this fact by an unassuming apple in my front flowerbed. A flowerbed that sits before a very old house, built of red stone, hand-hewn and crooked; a house that is, by turns, lovely and eerie.
I walked out the front door of my house and saw the apple there–red and vibrant among the few green leaves that still cling to the frozen branches of those front bushes. A bright spot of color in the largely barren tones of winter, it was a welcome sight.
But how did it get there? There is no apple tree in the front yard, and the apples from the back yard are small and earth-toned by comparison. Where did this gem come from?
Where my mind should have wandered in its answer is to my children. “Who walked out the front door and threw their lunch apple into the bushes?” That’s the logical question.
But I’ve been reading that German classic, the Brothers Grimm, and traveling to the Black Forest and various sundry towns mapped out in labryinthine streets of half timbered houses. The sorts of places that both delight and unsettle the pysche as night falls. . .the sorts of places where Santa makes the rounds with his sinister cohort Krampus in tow.
So where did my mind go as my eyes fell on the apple?
The gypsy woman who had knocked on our front door the weekend before. That had never happened before, and it was a little unsettling. My husband answered the door, but couldn’t understand anything she was saying. Was it German? Was it some other language, something Eastern European? Who knew? He kindly, firmly sent her away without whatever she had come for.
And here we were the next day, with a lone apple in our front flower bed–red, shiny, seductive in the barren patch. Like a riddle she left behind.
It’s still sitting there. Part of me knows that this is a silly flight of fancy.
But part of me wants to run out and take a giant bite of it, just to see what magnificent story would begin to untangle in the moment of that fateful taste.
Our house sparks a little interest, a little concern, and a little inquisitiveness in folks. So I thought I’d answer a few queries and concerns here.
Question Number One: A friend came over for dinner with us and brought his eight year old son. When we answered the front door, the son just stood there, looking up, then to the left and right. “Is this a castle?” he asked.
Answer: No, this is not a castle. But it could play one on TV.
Question Worrisome Observation Number Two: I was standing in the kitchen, looking out the front window the other day when my son and daughter came walking home from school. They stopped in front of the house and had a very animated conversation with a couple of kids from down the street. Then those kids ran off quick as lightening. When my brood came inside, I asked them what that was all about. “They said our house looks spooky,” was the response I got.
In answer: Yeah, I guess it is a little spooky. And you haven’t even seen the utility bills. Aiieee!
(Drum Roll) The Most Frequently Asked Question: Is it haunted?
Answer: Thank goodness, nothing scary so far. Some very creaky floor boards, and a few weird smells (possibly the house, possible my tweenage son), but nothing ghoulish. If that ever changes, you’ll hear all about it.
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I know exactly how Pandora felt. Horrified. Overwhelmed. Ashamed. But mostly just panicked.
On second thought, she shouldn’t have opened the box. REALLY shouldn’t have opened the box. But now it’s too late. What to do next? Run and hide? Try to fix the mess somehow?
And me? I’m sitting in a house full of boxes. Millions and gajillions of boxes. 
I shouldn’t have acquired so many worldly goods…but now I’ve grown attached to them. They are my life’s travels and my family memories played out in textiles, art, and furniture, and I’ve dragged them halfway across the world with me. Is that wierd/shallow/materialistic? I have no idea. Most days, I’d say it’s essential to being human, this appreciation of things that speak to your soul. But today I can tell you that it makes for a hell of a job unpacking when the movers dump the accumulation on your doorstep.
It’s overwhelming, the thought of having to unpack and organize it all. But it has to be done before the contents rise up on their own and riotously burst the seams of the boxes. One set of boxes, all full of books, crashed over in the middle of the night–sending the dvds and magazine I’d left at the top of the stack slidding across the floor. The message was clear: Step away from the dvds and get on task! Open the boxes! Free the contents to their rightful place in your house!!! If I don’t step up my efforts at unboxing quickly and efficiently, all the contents are sure to go into a full mutiny on me.
So there it is. I like my stuff, but it terrifies me at the moment.
As Pandora said, many weeks later, “you’ll just have to take the good with the bad.” That’s life.
If you haven’t heard from me in a week, send someone knocking on my door. It’s just possible that I’m lost under an avalanche of worldly goods. You can never tell what will pop out of these boxes once opened.
This Old House: The Staircase
The Turret
Travels and Tomes: One Expat's Amblings and Ramblings 