Catch Somewhere, My Soul

 Catch Somewhere, My Soul

Paging through digital images, I fall upon one I took of a wall in the old house. Strange, cryptic figures my son drew when he was six or so, too charming to wash off, so instead I cut a frame for it from construction paper. It was on the wall in the stairwell for all those years. I actually wanted to take the drawing, but that would have required gouging a hole in the drywall, and I didn’t want to leave a mess like that for the buyer to patch. Instead, I took this photo.

The buyer was so enthusiastic about the house. He loved it. He was looking forward to continuing the years of careful work we had put into it. He had an “in” with the city planning division, so he’d have more flexibility than we had.

The city double-crossed him, though, and forced him to demolish it. More than a century old, and with decades of careful work put into it, and it’s gone now. And so is the majestic cedar tree we loved so much, that the neighbors loved so much, often stopping under it to use its hanging branches as a frame for their photos of one another.

Can’t hang onto that grief, though. Or that grievance. We sold the house, so let it go. The house is gone, so let it go. It’s not wise to be so connected to an object, especially one you don’t own, even one as large and splendid as a Victorian house. Anyway, home is where Kathe is.

Oh, right. Kathe is dead, too. No doubt that’s part of the issue with the house: displacement of a much greater loss. Well, then, home will have to be where I am.

There was a time when I wouldn’t have been able to survive this. I was such a mess when I first met Kathe. I was incomplete. Immature. I should take heart, knowing that I did survive all of this, losses which would have destroyed me if they’d happened earlier. At least I’ve learned how to be self-sufficient enough to be able to carry on - even if I don’t always keep calm.

The Magic Eight-Ball says, "Keep calm and carry on."