About a House

One evening, a few months after I got married and moved to Oklahoma, I was out for an exploratory drive around the city when I made a turn down a street with a crummy looking grocery store on the corner. I thought I was going to be disappointed until I entered the next block and found myself under a canopy of trees, surrounded by amazing homes. I went up and down the streets for a while when seemingly out of nowhere, I found myself in front of the house. It was love at first sight. I crept along at a snail's pace, finally got by it, and then drove around the block and went past again. I think I may have stopped that time. It was the front porch and the windows that pulled me in. And the gables. And the tree in the front yard. It was all presented to me when the sun was at the point of its descent where color is ribboned across the sky. 

I was finally able to take Jake to see it the next week, it was for sale! I went home and looked it up on realtor.com, and thought it was the greatest thing ever. I built my life in the rooms on the screen in front of me, and imagined evenings, like the first one I saw it on, sitting on the front porch. 

When we moved into Dot, we moved into the same neighborhood as this house. We also moved into a new congregation (in Mormondom they are called wards, and the congregation/ward you attend is based on where your home is - kind of like a school boundary). I looked through the directory to see if anyone from church lived close to us. I found two families. One family lived on our street, but our first Sunday was their last because they'd just finished school and were moving. The other family lived on a familiar street. I looked up their address, and they lived in my old Dreamy Dream Home. I felt stars aligning.  

On May 29th, while I was up writing this post, their home was on fire after being struck by lightning during some crazy storms. It wasn't a total loss, and from the street, one would have to do a double take to see that there had been a fire, but there was significant damage that will take a long while to repair. It was sad to see. When looking up through the ceilings and floors, I felt bad for/was amazed at the parts that had been there for so long. We live in old houses, you know. But I also thought about what would take its place and how it would be carefully tucked away, holding everything together throughout the next century.

This is about a house, a very particular one, but in the last year, getting to know the lungs breathing, hearts beating people who call it home has been wonderful.  Like a holy smokes, prayers are answered, divine intervention blessing for me. On a scale of how much I've enjoyed/appreciated people in my life, they are way up there. He wears bow ties. If thou knowest not my affinity for bow ties, thou knowest not me. He's also really tall which is plain ol' familiarity being that I come from a long family line of men (and women) who have to stoop when walking through certain doorways (I got the recessive genes!). She is right up there with those who are the cheese to my macaroni. Hmm. The peanut butter to my jelly. The non-hydrogenated margarine to my homemade bread. No, here it is: the chip to my salsa. I love them, and I'm glad that of all the people in the whole wide world who could live in the home I used to daydream about, they're it.     

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