Postcard from Limbo

This is where I live now. It has a roof and four walls and one and a half dogs and a set of parental units and a Mr. Gooddirt, so all should be fine. There is food to eat and so much tea you could swear we were back in Blighty.

Still, it isn’t home.

Jim and I are soon moving into the house I grew up in. It’s about a mile from my parents’, so we’re camped out with them while our stuff makes its way across country, apparently making stops at everyone else’s houses before it gets to ours. Plus, the floors are being redone (we just got the carpet entirely in yesterday!), so really, it’s better that we can’t move in just yet.

And yet. There is something totally unsettling about being in someone else’s house, trying to act like this is just everyday. There’s a certain amount of tip-toeing–my mom likes everything *just so*, so we’re more careful to not leave traces of ourselves around. And this place is big, so there are places we don’t use and rooms I haven’t even set foot in in the over-a-week since we’ve been back here.

The temperature is frosty today, and it feels about the same indoors. The floors here are ceramic tile and marble; the ceilings are high; the coffee table in the formal sitting room is an icy Lucite. Was it this way when I was growing up?

By contrast, my preferred design aesthetic–warm wood floors; lived-in mid-century furniture; art in modest sizes–seems positively Hobbity.

So we’re excited to move yet again, once our stuff gets here, and start making a new home out of my old home.

In the meantime, we’ve been busy clearing out the yard; draining the hot tub (which was filled with mosquito-breeding-ground water and had been covered by a tarp); and replacing things like old wooden gates. We’ve pulled up some of the cement borders around the older trees, which were coming up anyway due to 20 years of roots working their merry ways across the ground, and added some minute touches of our own, like tiny solar lights along the driveway.

We’ve also had the great pleasure of seeing some friends. And we’re looking forward to discovering the town that I lived in as a teenager, but also as a completely different person.

In the meantime, my work falters due to the forced mobility and sense of displacement, and that’s both creatively and business-wise. But I’m sure it’ll regain its footing again soon.