A Pilgrim’s Digression

Only about two weeks remain before I must vacate the house at Hillandale. This is a bittersweet time. I’ve spent the past five years and nine months at that address, three days weekly. I cannot say it felt like home; but I was used to it.

Looking at it objectively, it was often a filthy, uncomfortable place to live. It’s little better now. In fact, in some ways it is worse. The extensive renovations promised after Aurelia died are not coming to pass. Her oldest son, Barton, has decided the house must go on the market at the beginning of October, leaving no time to install central air and heat, or to replace the windows or bathroom fixtures. I’ve always doubted that central air and heat could be installed in the house anyway, as old as it is. How does one retrofit for central air a home built in 1928?

The windows seem to me the biggest deterrent to getting the desired $450,000 asking price for the home. Not a single window can be opened, and there are no screens anyway, even if they could be opened. But I can see how it would cost a fortune to replace the windows, which probably makes selling the house as-is more attractive.

So, no renovations. Instead, Nadine and Tim, the two younger siblings (both in their early sixties), are painting–rather sloppily I might add; there are drops of paint everywhere on the wood floors. Also, someone replaced the toilet seat on the decades-old throne in my bathroom. However, the toilet seat doesn’t fit, so when I go pee, either I have to sit down or else I stand and hold the seat up with one hand and my penis with the other.

Tim is staying at the house this week, and I’m sure Nadine is enjoying his visit. If I could convey sarcasm in writing, that would be an example. Tim brought his girlfriend from Florida, or rather the woman he’s mooching off of currently. When I met her last night, she seemed a little “tetched” in the head, to use a rural-ism from my youth. She’s a middle-aged woman, probably in her fifties, with a slightly batty look in her eye and a giggly voice like she’s mimicking Shirley Temple. She’d have to be a little nuts, or perhaps extremely desperate, to think of Tim as boyfriend material. The man gambles and has never held a job in over forty years of adulthood, and that is no exaggeration.

Anyway, I’m sure she adds something valuable to the atmosphere of decay that envelops the house. I can’t imagine Tim ever bringing her to stay at the house while Aurelia was alive. When I arrived last night, the two of them were sitting downstairs cuddling and watching TV in nightshirts; Nadine was already locked in her upstairs bedroom, no doubt peacefully zonked out on her “nerve medicine.”

Furniture leaves the house every day. Whether it is going to auction, or into the homes of family members, I don’t know. My bathroom has become something of a storage room for paint and paint pans. Paint brushes lie drying on the edges of the sink, and globs of paint coat the sink basin. The shower is filthy, probably due to Tim’s extended stay. When the house on Hillandale was his permanent residence, I often found a coating of curly hair in the bathtub in the morning, when I went to take my shower.

One thing about a bald guy like me: no one can blame me for leaving hair in the tub and sink. This morning, I noted that not only was there dirt and hair in the tub, but the plastic curtain had been removed, leaving only the cloth liner.

On the positive side, the house is no longer as hot as it was back in the summer. I don’t need to run my air conditioner in my room all night. The bathroom isn’t so stifling in the morning that only a cold shower can leave me feeling refreshed.

Overall, I am sad to be leaving this era in my life behind. At one time, I had high hopes for writing something worthwhile in that house. back in ‘03-’04, when it was only Aurelia and I living there, the atmosphere was conducive to writing. She told me lots of good stories about her family. I hadn’t yet discovered a certain video game. I had evenings free to sit in my tiny bedroom under the slant of the roof and write. But nothing ever came of it. And that, Dear Reader, is the true story of my life: nothing ever came of it.

Life goes on, though. Death, too. On October 5th, I will begin spending my three-day work week at a hotel in Tysons. I’m looking forward to the cleanliness, and the air-conditioning, and the continental breakfast. Other than that, it’s sad to leave a house with so many memories, and such character.