Deborah Forster

As someone long prepared for the occasion
In full command of every plan you erect
Do not choose a coward’s explanation
that hides behind the cause and the effect.

– ‘Alexandra Leaving’ by Leonard Cohen

 

The first cold night here in this unsteady summer, the new house was surrounded by a singing silence as if we were in a soft envelope of quiet. From the balcony,  the moon and stars rose over the mountainous sky beyond the roof. Beauty was tangible, but regret was  there too.

Leaving the old house was something we’d prepared for and committed to, but it was all about the timing,  which for me was away somewhere in the future.

The place had grown too big once the kids left, but I still loved it and thought the plan was unlikely to be enacted, so I took the coward’s explanation and hid from all talk of it.

I’d lived for twenty-two years in a house named ‘Clementine’. In the garden, plants given by my kids, roses and the white dogwood bloomed and nodded. One daughter was married in the garden.  Our dog Tim was buried by the pear tree.  I was never ready to leave the house that was so full of us, but plans must be honoured. We had owned many houses before, but this one was home.

As it happened, I was not able to help in the move because I was in hospital. So, there was time to think. I tried to recall negatives to make me leave ‘Clementine’, but love illuminates us and negatives don’t work on things you love.

I collected two anyway; the house was on a mildly busy street and  sometimes noise flared with motor bikes and loud cars. I got ear plugs for the occasion. Many students lived around us too and when they got the chance to party, at schoolies or holidays, they went hard and coming down, they’d trail through the street like slow comets, dropping fast food wrappers and sometimes crying. Someone vomited in our letterbox one night.  So much for fun.

Now out of the hospital  and tentatively into the new place on a day of 40 degrees to find the pot plants had not been watered in all the rush of the move. I got the hose and had a go, frying in the sun  but soon gave up. The house was disappointing, there were no curtains, no power, and no internet. I was tired and sleep arrived slowly like a pair of plough horses pulling me up the hill.

Next morning at 6.47am (I looked at the phone) the dog behind us charged at our fence with a strangled howl and almost immediately a man bellowed: ‘You fucking mongrel dog!’ So now things seemed more normal. I haven’t heard the man yelling again, though he sings a bit, and I hear his children playing and squabbling in the span of summer afternoons.

And I see birds  dangling from that family’s jacaranda as the tree dribbles purple bells onto our grass. The wind bumps into borrowed trees in other backyards. A lemon scented gum pruned hard on one side could be a face in profile.

In the afternoon, clouds are piled in mauve clumps like foothills. Rain threatens houses filled with families busily growing children, a crop I once cultivated. Out the front, instead of a wall of lillypillies, now there is  grass, sun, wind, and no fence. Neighbours are friendly and some keep bees. One has an ancient dog who barks at walls when home alone, asking ‘how’ over and over. So many dogs around here.

There are many changes to think about:

-The new world order of the downsizer. Without the shell of the old house, suddenly I feel older.

– Watering the garden again, standing on elastic grass. Thinking about being young and wondering how good that really was anyway. Unearthing a box of old photos and seeing the beauty of the kids and my husband. Realising that being alive is what is really fine.

– No clothesline yet, so wet clothes are draped everywhere like flat people.

– Working out the new stove is a form of maths torture.

– Parking in the street again.

– The surprise of the new shopping strip, so many excellent small places.

– Still Missing In Action from the move: Christmas tree, big knife, vases, bathrobe, the bottle of Frangelico for the tiramisu and countless other things moving like ghost signs in my mind. I know I saw them but where?

– Rediscovering the comforts of music and children.

So, while this still feels temporary or at least new, I try to recall other houses in the valleys of the past and consider whether those places were loved or not. Many were.

Christmas here revived the weave of family, the feast, and then all of us playing cricket on the grass after the pitch was mowed by our son.  Our six-year-old grandson recorded the teams on a big sheet of paper. At  every wicket and catch,  shouts of joy bubble up. And this is really about love and kindness.

The next afternoon, I walk through the green streets past dogs at fences and kids in yards, playing some blues (Stevie Ray Vaughan) in my ear pods, inhaling gardens after rain. And I know, if it rains on this roof tonight, I will hear it.