House Sold/Where To?

Working Sisyphus-like on the weeds one weekend, I heard Suzy Orman’s voice on NPR advising, “If it’s not your dream house, sell it!” Despite the amount of TLC I had put into Oak Grove over the past four years, it took me two seconds to answer that question. I added my resolution to downsize to the equation and determined that listing my house would certainly jumpstart this lifestyle change.

However, despite the attempt to overhaul my feng shui, I was unreasonably shaky after Robin drove off with the sofa bed and mosaic patio furniture from Further. Books have been carefully catalogued and packed in boxes. Closets have been emptied. The move has started. And even though it isn’t the ocean side cottage I’ve dreamt about, Oak Grove has been a safe harbor for me.

Of course, what this musing means is that I’ve finally sold my house, listed for almost nine months - a gestation worthy of celebration. It’s been a bumpy road in what we’re being sold as a buyers “market”, but a road that ultimately led the perfect owners to this haven.

Wanting to find the right people became a mission, forcing me to acknowledge the fierce protectiveness towards the sanctuary I created; Jeanette & Hal Whitstone’s address for fifty years and personally designed in 1941 by Lillian Anderson before them. I spent hours philosophizing with my realtor, and after two failed attempts at purchase, the universe answered.

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That I recognize Oak Grove as home is odd to me, because I when I bought it, I was in the throws of grief and blind love simultaneous attacking my system.

The thing about grief is that it is personal and it can attach itself to you in many forms. Mine was retail therapy, including the purchase of this house, bought at the behest of my boyfriend who insisted that when he moved to Los Angeles, we would need a bigger place and a garage in which to park his aging sports car.

But when I found myself alone while he was off trying his hand at motorcycle racing, I discovered just how much disrepair the property was in, one night coming home to rain running down the walls of the dining room. After calling my angel, Antonio, who hurriedly and rather blindly arranged tarps on the roof, I sat down on the floor and cried.

Eventually, we broke up, but I was buoyed to fully restore and make Oak Grove my own by the prevalent creative energy of my predecessors. And in the next months spent roofing, flooring, painting, and planting, part of me became ingrained in the foundation.

In the past four years, I’ve developed a morning routine; a daily check up on the state of things, coffee in tow, chatting through the fence with Carlos, a source of infinite wisdom, peer in on the gold fish I’ve fed to Koi size, measure the progress of the Madagascar, Arabian, Pink Star, Angel Wing and Night Blooming jasmine I’ve planted, planning for their sweet aroma to fill the yard all twelve months of the year. I note how the lilac vine Hope, Debbie & Nancy presented on my 37th birthday has taken over the lower deck and am awed by the beauty of the sparkling red passiflora Dick & James, my other next door neighbors, presented for a house warming gift.

I gauge the progress of cuttings I’ve brought from Poppy Peak and before that, Silver Lake, of the aloe and other native succulents inherited from another neighbor, and the clivia lillies Hal planted for Jeannette that I’ve separated for James, and the irises he & Dick have separated for me. My Alpine Ginger has finally decided to explode with dozens of white, pink and yellow clusters of bell shaped flowers. I’ve been surprised by the full scented freesia blooming in early spring and cursed the birds for keeping me awake at night with their singing and chatter.

My kitchen sits high above the street at the corner of Wiota & Oak Grove and I often call out from my windows to neighbors, yell at drivers ignoring the Stop sign or quietly sit while an spectacular sunset commands my attention.

Many things happen between the walls of a house. Hearts break, vows are made, new recipes tested, ginger snaps explode in the oven. And there are triumphs, excitement of new love, the thrill of discovering a white owl softly hooting in the night atop one of the large and very old California oak trees.

I think about these things as I take pictures down off the wall and fill in the holes. The house has begun to feel empty and I’m constantly finding objects I don’t use. A veritable plethora of vases, a coral shirt recklessly purchased, things I don’t want to take with me to wherever it is I’m going. And that is a big question mark. As Jeff says, I’m in the great unknown.

I’ve been in Los Angeles for over fourteen years; the longest I’ve lived anywhere since leaving Sudbury on the edge of 17. Our little Cape was the last place I called home, and when my parents sold it, the moving out was painful. I cried everyday until the moving van pulled out of the driveway. It was in this place that I felt wholly myself, where my family was, where both kids and adults shot hoops on the basketball court into the evening, where the hostas my mother planted besides the birch trees on the side yard bloomed and where the stump, a sad empty reminder of the weeping willow cleaved out after it threatened the water pipes, lay among the crocuses in the front yard.

As I contemplate my predicament in the final weeks of escrow, the two new creative spirits that will add their own experiences to the mixture hearten me. During the inspection, while we sat on the upper deck among the treetops, I pointing out the different varieties of plants and narrating a brief history of the property, my heart knew that Tom & Sharon were sent to take over the story.

I’m both scared and exhilarated to think that I’ll be homeless soon, the closing date two days before departing for India as a Team Leader for Habitat. I consciously look forward to getting out of the country, recalling David LeBarron once describing me as a seed in the wind. Perhaps that’s true. I always seem to be moving, on the go, infected with the traveling bug.

I not only desire, but dream of a clean, well lighted place to hang my hat. And when I return without an address or a utility bill, I’m confident the universe will point me in the right direction.