Tag Archives: adulthood

Downtown Cathedral

Posted on by under Guest, Memory & Place

The cathedral on a street corner downtown Hartford is unassuming on the outside. It’s easy to walk straight past it. It’s easy to walk straight past much in Hartford, a small city with large buildings which tower and preside over it. Financial institutions and insurance companies make their home in Hartford, and their buildings meld into one another. When experienced as a whole, their sheer height and the packed-in feeling of a tiny business district makes for a distinct indistinctness.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I have walked past the cathedral many times on my way to and from my downtown workplace. One day I looked at the place a bit closer. I was trying to find a church I’d heard of—one that owns the house that the poet Wallace Stevens lived in. I found myself at the cathedral, looking at it, and in it, for the first time.

The building is of a dark brown stone built in the gothic revival style some two hundred years ago, with a pointed pitched roof and high, arched doors on three sides. Venture in further and the doors open into the dark sanctuary. The walls are covered with frescoes and stained glass windows. Over the altar are miniature depictions of the symbols of the disciples and the shells of St. John the Baptist. On Sunday mornings the light streams faintly through the colored glass and the air is choked with incense. The curls of it rise up to the ceiling.

On Sundays I sit in my pew with the pew door carefully shut. I say carefully because the old wood has a tendency to bang against the jamb and it makes me want to run away, far and fast. Small talk and casual conversation, and indeed, casualness itself, are not in the fabric here. After the opening hymns and readings, the priest and acolytes process down the aisle for the gospel reading. The thurifer censes the book; clouds and puffs of thick scent waft into the air. And the priest scans the pages through the smoke and begins to read.

The cathedral reminds me of the church I left years ago. The seat of my childhood. That church is a mere sixty years old. It has been thoroughly modernized with proper plumbing and fresh expanses of white paint, and a state-of-the-art sound system for which the new sanctuary was designed. The pull of the cathedral, for me, is that it doesn’t get updated. It does remind me that it and the church I left exist in time. Time and space.

The cathedral seems to be getting smaller as new buildings rise around it. My old church gets bigger and newer, but its popularity waxes and wanes like air inhaled and then expelled from lungs.

One summer afternoon I sat with four other people on folding chairs on the tiny cement patio wedged between the cathedral and the rectory, with the sun shining hotly down on us. We were there for one of the midday concerts sometimes held during the week at the cathedral. That day a saxophone quartet, the artists in residence at the cathedral, played for an hour. The music was fresh and lively—a mix of klezmer and classical pieces transcribed for a sax quartet.

Memory tapped persistently at my mind again, of the kind of music played at the other place. The guitar and drum pieces punctuated in time by a short piece by Handel, played during the offertory. Short because the offertory is a slim, quick task there. At the cathedral it is all Handel, all Bach, all the time. The offertory there may be slimmer.

Time away from the old church has been good. I discovered the cathedral, which has been good. But like incense, once you’ve got it in your nose, you can’t unsmell it. You can’t unremember your memories.

*   *   *   *   *

image1 (3)“Downtown Cathedral” was written by Elena Shekleton. Elena lives and works in Hartford and is moving across country to Colorado over the summer. She has a Masters in Comparative Literature for which she studied fairy tales and folklore and can say she is proudly acquainted with giants, dwarves, witches, clever princes, and enchanted cabbages from many different countries.

Rescuing the Past at a Run-Down Motel

Posted on by under Guest, Memory & Place

Two years ago I set off for an early morning walk along the Wildwood, New Jersey boardwalk in search of the most significant landmark from my childhood. It was the point around which my year revolved for a decade for our extended family’s annual vacation.

The sun was already blazing in the sky. The boardwalk narrowed, and then it stopped altogether, giving way to an asphalt walkway behind the dunes that seemed no match for the roaring ocean nearby.

After rounding a massive hotel that looked a bit more run down than I remember from over twenty years ago, I saw the familiar lit up palm trees on the horizon and the snack bar deck peeking out. I thought that the massive rock jetty nearby would tip me off that I was getting close, but the jetty was far smaller than I remembered. In fact, everything seemed smaller now: the beach used to feel like an endless desert, the tiny dunes had once appeared to be immovable barriers, and, most importantly, the Aloha Motel now appeared far less impressive and imposing.

boardwalkThis (apparently) rather small and simple motel was the destination of our family vacations every summer during early July. To my young mind, this motel was a palace of sorts. We set off for the beach each morning, making the “arduous” trek over sand dunes and across “scorching” sand in order to swim in the “freezing” ocean. At the end of the day, we’d return to the Aloha for a dip in the pool and then showers, before setting out for a night on the boardwalk. If our vacation coincided with baseball’s All Star Game, as it often did, my cousins and I would eat a late dinner huddled around the television.

Now, standing on the sea wall as an adult, with the Aloha before and the ocean behind, I imagined my grandfather shuffling along the first floor walkway in order to make our reservations for next year, wearing his large “Quinn” family hat. Pop was not one to be outdone in the planning department.

As I shifted from the magic and wonder of the past to the stark, underwhelming present, I found the magic of my childhood creeping up on me. My own child, back at a different hotel with my wife, was experiencing his first vacation in Wildwood. Just a year old, he couldn’t enjoy any of the rides or games that my cousins and I had experienced with pure joy, but just having a child of my own made my childhood seem more present. Everything was amazing back then.

Back then, every day felt like an eternity of waves, sandcastles, and beach games. Every dinner out for fried seafood or greasy pizza a culinary wonder topped off with Kohr Brothers custard. Every amusement pier promised an exhilarating rush.

That day, 20 or so years later, I could see the run-down Aloha Motel, the kitsch of the boardwalk’s games and rides, and details I don’t remember noticing as a kid, like people hauling coolers full of beer to the beach to get hammered while they tan. Left to my own devices, the present overwhelmed the magic of my memories that had all but washed away. Now that I had my son to consider (these days we have two sons), I couldn’t stop myself from filtering everything through his perspective.

On the one hand seeing the shore through my son’s eyes was a delightful delusion, but on the other, my son gave me a part of myself that could have been lost forever. The memories of the past roared back stronger and with greater clarity because I didn’t just see the pictures in my mind—I felt them.

I already could imagine him one day tearing around in bumper cars, zipping up and down on the airplane ride, or spending hours on a massive sand castle that won’t survive high tide. These weren’t just happy moments—these were the thrills that, in part, defined my childhood. As open as my eyes may have been to the more disappointing elements of the shore during that trip, through the lens of fatherhood I regained a childlike clarity that had once been my own.

Who’s to say which version is the better or truer one?

*    *    *    *    *

EdC200“Rescuing the Past at a Run-Down Motel” is by Ed Cyzewski. Ed writes at www.edcyzewski.com about prayer, writing, and the ways they intersect. He’s the author of Pray, Write, Grow: Cultivating Prayer and Writing Together, First Draft Father, and A Christian Survival Guide. Find him onTwitter or Facebook.

The stories of things

Posted on by under Home & Place

One winter Monday, 15 or so years ago, I arrived at work to some devastating news: Over the weekend, a coworker had lost her home to a fire.

We all huddled around the coffee pot in the break room, trying to imagine—although we knew we couldn’t—what it would be like to lose almost all of your earthly possessions. A week later, when our colleague Chris returned to work, we began the slow process of bearing witness to her shock and grief. Then, months later, we were her empathic-yet-fascinated audience as she told stories of the new house rising from the ashes—not just being built, but also being populated with new things.

I was only in my late-20s and had accumulated relatively little, yet I couldn’t fathom what it would mean to start completely over. There would be the lack of pillowcases, cake pans, and familiar sweaters waiting for you as fall settles into winter, but also many harder-to-replace things: No rows of books with penciled notes and cardstock bookmarks identifying the shops where the books were bought. No wedding gifts that, each time you use them, bring to mind the great aunt or college friend who bestowed them. No outdated lamps from your childhood, handed down to you as you entered adulthood with so little.

Chris was in her late 50s, so the home she lost had contained decades of memories and treasures. While her new home was being built, Chris told us about the interior decorator, who specialized in “recreating meaning.” I was utterly fascinated by—and skeptical of—the process, which involved interviewing Chris and her husband to gather meaningful family stories and tales of travel adventures—references she would then bring into the new home through new objects.

I never would have dared to ask Chris, but I always wondered: Did it work? Can a home speak in retrospect of a life lived, or must the life be lived into the home?

*   *   *   *   *

I suppose the question needled me because it touched on an area I had dabbled in myself—but in reverse: I, as a newly married 22 year old, had attempted to use objects in my home to speak into my story. I didn’t know what my life would be like, but I knew what I wanted it to look like. If I built the stage, would the life follow?

Garage sales, thrift shops, and odd pieces of loaned and handed-down furniture created the kind of comfortable, quirky, space-with-a-history that I longed for. My husband was a painter, so the walls were filled with art (indicating that we were “creative” and “interesting,” of course!). A set of handmade pottery dishes, given to us as wedding gifts, conveyed that we were “down-to-earth” and “simple”—no fine china for us! And we rushed to buy books to fill the shelves—more books than we could possibly keep up with. It would take us years to actually read and absorb their stories and ideas, but that wasn’t the point. I wanted to be instantly surrounded by these visual symbols of intellect and depth.

In short, I wanted everything in my home to tell a story about us, but I was too impatient to let the stories emerge on their own.

*   *   *   *   *

Now I know the answer to the question I wanted to ask Chris so many years ago: A life must be lived into the things that fill a home—it can’t be put on, like a costume.

My home today (the eighth of my adulthood homes) is filled with evidence of a life that’s been both beautiful and complex. Yes, the books, art, furniture, and dishes each have stories to tell, but they are not all happy stories. They tell stories of a broken marriage as well as stories of wholeness and healing. They bring to mind the struggles and triumphs of single motherhood, as well as the ongoing tales of blending two families into a new one.

My eyes scan the rooms visible from where I sit at my desk. There’s the dining room table—the same table my ex-husband and I sat at four homes ago, a highchair pulled up so we could spoon food into our daughter’s mouth. Now, during dinners at that table, Jason and I navigate the tumble of tales and ideas shared by our three teenage daughters.

photo 1I can also see the vintage sofa I happily snatched up as a single mom about to move into a rented duplex. It’s the same sofa I sat on to read books to my young daughters, but it has since been reupholstered (following an unspeakable incident with the family dog). Behind the sofa is the piano I grew up hearing my grandmother play; she gave it to me when it was time for her to move into assisted living, and time for my daughters to learn to read music.

And beyond the sofa and piano, just inside the front door, is a gallery wall of small artwork and treasures. An olive-wood cross, carved and painted in Santorini where Jason and I honeymooned, hangs just to the left of a painting my ex-husband made of the house he and I lived in when our daughters were born.

photo (7)Suddenly, I can see my home for what it is: not a collection of aesthetic choices I hope will communicate something appealing about me, but vessels holding the real stories that have emerged in my life. And that gallery wall in particular? It also symbolizes my acceptance of those stories—the intentional, beautiful stories as well as the haphazard and heartbreaking ones. Together, they speak truth: Welcome to my home, welcome to my life.

 

 

Moving House

Posted on by under Guest, Out of Place

Late last year, I attempted to move into a house not owned by my parents. I sat down with a potential roommate (a friend of a friend) and we established that although we were strangers, neither of us was too strange.

I began to haunt Craig’s List for homes in our price range (which was somewhere between “it has a lot of personality” and sleeping with a gun).

I fell in love with the first house we saw. It was over a hundred years old with beautiful wood floors and a mantelpiece. There was an enclosed porch on the second floor and I could just see my writing desk there with a cup of tea on it, curling steam.

“I want this little yellow house,” I said, after the current renter had left and my not-yet roommate and I were left alone in my car.

“You can’t fall in love with the first place we go,” he said.

But I did.

At my insistence, we drove to the property management company and even began to fill out applications before we realized that the numbers didn’t add up. To qualify to rent this house, we would need another roommate, at least (and it had been hard enough to find each other). Still, I kept hoping.

*   *   *   *

We walked through apartments which looked as though they hadn’t been redone since the seventies (with prices to match). We toured buildings with tiny washing machines, and pools in the complex, and the chance of a garage (if there was a vacancy).

The whole process made me tired, and I kept thinking about that little house.

*   *   *   *

“Apartments are fine,” I said. “But houses just have so much more character, don’t you think?”

We had just realized that we were truly torn over something important. I wanted wood floors, he did not. We were both convinced that the other simply didn’t understand the facts.

“Sure,” he said. “But there’s so much more to take care of in a house.”

He didn’t get it. After years of living in places I couldn’t control, I wanted someplace to care for, some place to love.

“Let’s just see,” I said. “Maybe if we find the right house.”

*   *   *   *

I went to our last showing alone. I didn’t intend to, but my would-be roommate got lost. So, I stood in another little yellow house (apparently I’m strangely drawn to yellow houses) and chatted with the representative of the management company, trying desperately to act like I knew what I was talking about as I asked questions.

StricklandhouseThere are lots of different kinds of little yellow houses. As I think back on it now, with its empty laundry room, draped with blackout curtains and central hood location, this one would have made a good drug house.

This little yellow house, a bit worse for wear, was across the street from the Salvation Army, and two buildings in from Planned Parenthood.

There was a handy bus stop on the corner, and several inexpensive Chinese restaurants close by.

I don’t know if it was the pedestal sink in the bathroom, the bright orange bedroom (with a walk-in closet) or the wood floors, but I found myself asking about the next steps in the application process.

My roommate arrived after the agent had left, and we peeked in the windows. The paint was peeling and chipped, the interior was dark, and the windows were leaking heat faster than it could be generated.

For some reason, we decided to apply to rent it.

*   *   *   *

If warning bells were ringing then, I didn’t hear them.

This was it, we were getting our little yellow house.

We signed the papers and picked up the keys. It was the week of Christmas, and my brother was in town to help me move my belongings from one home to another.

I moved my things, but planned to stay at my parents’ through the holidays.

My roommate moved in with his brand new set of early Christmas Tupperware.

*   *   *   *

I began to unpack, a little each day, setting up my bed, and hanging my clothes in the closet. I thought I was emotional from all of the transition, but as I smoothed my duvet and placed my new set of knives on the counter, I couldn’t shake the lump in my throat. I didn’t open the knife package, I couldn’t bear to put them in the sticky, hand-painted drawer.

I was nervous about going to the house alone at night. I would reach out to my roommate, first, to make sure he was there, or take my brother with me. I would put on a record, and turn on all the lights, hoping I would get used to being on my own.

But something wasn’t right.

It wasn’t long before I started getting texts from my roommate. They were low-key at first. Don’t cook anything. There might be mice. I haven’t seen any.

But things escalated quickly, as they often do.

He called our contact at the management company. She offered to bring mouse traps.

There are mice everywhere.

I called him, after that, and he told me about the nest in the stove, the droppings all over the counters. I thought about the evidence I’d seen in my closet.

Before I knew it, we were on the phone with each other, and then the property managers, trying to break the lease we had signed days earlier.

When it was done, and we were free, my almost-roommate moved back home to another city. I sat amidst the boxes in the room that had always been mine, in my parents’ house, and cried.

 *   *   *   *   *

Strickland“Moving House” was written by Cara Strickland. Cara has lived in San Diego, California, London, England, and Upland, Indiana. Once, in college, she wrote an essay saying that she was from Narnia. She currently lives in Spokane, WA, in a wonderful little house with wood floors and a purple porch, where she is a writer, blogger, editor, and food critic.