Alison Hodgson

Expert on the etiquette of perilous times.

Building the Story

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Today I’m working on a short account of someone setting fire to our home, of losing everything and rebuilding.

Long time readers and friends might have seen “short account” and registered a red flag.

I hear you.  I see it waving too. Short has never been my strong suit and I don’t feel ready to summarize the experience. We all know I can write about the fire and of losing everything, but when I think about trying to tell the story cogently and well my brain hurts and I imagine it looking like the picture above.

Because rebuilding was as much of the suffering as the fire, in some ways, I’ve only begun to mourn.  The story of everything isn’t finished.  I don’t know where I am exactly, maybe just breaking ground.

But someone wants me to tell the story. I’m being offered a wonderful opportunity and I don’t want to squander it.

Maybe I need to look at this “short account” as a blueprint. I don’t have to actually build a house today, just write the plan for what I want it to be.

Spree’s End

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Christopher called me from school today.  He was on his cell phone which spared me the visceral shot of adrenaline that follows seeing his school on the caller i.d.

“I’m afraid our spree of no homework has ended.” This was said abruptly and woefully.

“Oh that’s too bad.”  I said.  Personally, I was suffused with relief that I was not speaking with a. his support teacher or b. his assistant Principal.

“…because I have the bad luck of being assigned Civics.”

Now here I had a jolt of misgiving.  Civics was first semester, as today is the third day of second semester, he has no business having any homework there.

“Did you mean ‘Economics’?” I asked.

“No, no I’m not in Geometry,” he said, “I’m in fourth hour.”

We have these sorts of conversations on the phone, all the time and even face to face.  Being hard of hearing stinks.  And being fine of hearing whilst conversing with the former ain’t no picnic.

“E-CO-NOM-ICS!”  I enunciated, “Is that where you have homework?”

“Oh yeah!  Yeah!’ He said.

“Well you can do that,”  I said.  “I bet you can do that easily.  And if you need help I know Dad would love to give it.”  Economics was Paul’s major in college and his life’s passion.  Economics is not to be confused with finance.  I don’t have a ready metaphor for the difference, but I’m sure he does. It takes all kinds, right?

“OK, Mom.”  Christopher said.

“You should probably get back to work, Buddy.”

“OK, Mom.”

“I love you.”  I said, “Have a great afternoon.”

“OK.  I love you too.”

I have expended more adrenaline raising this kid than…I don’t have the strength to make an apt comparison and my sleep debt probably rivals what the U.S. owes the Chinese and, I’m thankful to remember, it’s worth every ounce, every minute.  He is. Worth it.

Pug Lovers

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This is unprecedented.
Up until last week Oliver would not be separated from Eden.
It’s like he read her Pug List and knew “That girl belongs to me.”
We got him January 1 and rarely have they been parted.  If she happened to leave him, God help the person who was dog sitting.  Until we know he is trustworthy in the house, we’re keeping a very close eye on him or putting him in his kennel.  Since he sounds like a tree frog being strangled when we do, we try to limit his time there to when we’re gone.
But last week something shifted.  I don’t know why, if  it’s that he’s starting to feel at home, but Lydia watched him on Wednesday when Eden and Christopher and I went to the museum and he and Jack slept on her bed while she studied and then Sunday I had him when everyone else was scattered hither and yon.
Pugs snore and snort.  They are wonderfully ridiculous dogs.  A dear friend of ours has family with pugs.  His brother tells him, “You can’t believe how relaxing it is to have a snoring pug sleep against you.”
The brother is right.

 

New Growth

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It’s a peculiar experience walking through the ruins of your home.
This is the floor of my study about two months after the fire. It was one of the rooms on the first floor hardest hit. The roof burned away and the ceiling was on the floor. The knotty pine paneling had been charred or eaten away by flames, but so many parts of the room were intact, almost burned beyond recognition, but there still.
The weeks before the fire I was working on a book proposal. In the ruins you could see books I was referencing as well as pieces of a friend’s proposal I was using as a model. It was so strange to stand in that room, that no longer had a roof and walls, but to see paper that survived.

I had the study one week.  We had shuffled around the bedrooms to create room for it.  The girls moved in together and Paul and I traded with them, moving into a smaller room that had been Lydia’s and changed Eden’s into the study.  All the bedrooms we redid, repainting the walls and replacing the floors.  Everything was fresh and new.  The week before the fire Paul and my brother-in-law, David moved in my old oak desk, that was a little too big, but I was using until I found something I liked better.  Days before the fire they moved in the sofa that I knew would be a place for Paul and some of the kids to lounge.

The day before the fire I was planning the bookshelves for the hundreds of books that were stacked in the hall and dining room, waiting to move in.

There is a small study, also on the northwest corner of the new house.  Since we moved it has been the dumping ground of all our records, supplies for Eden’s home school and everything related to the build.  A few months ago I made some semblance of order but during the holidays it became the gift staging area and a new mess.

One of my excuses is that I have been homeschooling Eden and need to find a desk or table big enough for both of us to sit beside each other.  I haven’t found one that pleased me, so we’ve been doing school at the island or the couch, which is fine, but we’re constantly schlepping her books and notebooks around.

Today was the breaking point.  It wasn’t dramatic, I just hit a wall.  I’m working on a new project which means a new proposal and I need to spread out some papers and make room for a stack of books.  I need a desk.  I have a small, antique library desk that my brother-in-law lent me, but it’s not comfortable  and doesn’t afford a lot of space.

Never mind that.

I cleared it off and Christopher helped me move it in front of a window.  There are still baskets full of records that need to be sorted and piles of papers too, but this is it.   I’m claiming this space.  I’m writing in and through the mess.