If I told you I didn’t care about the house we once lived in, you’d be shocked – probably you’d think me a liar. Well, maybe I am, to a point.
The kitchen – my usual designated workspace – must have been the architect’s last thought, definitely not “the heart of the home.” It was, as a dear friend observed, “a one-butt kitchen,” with no room to swing a cat! (Not anything I’d try) Yet, so many dear ones, family and friends, shared meals from that miserable space. I managed to make bread, roll out Thanksgiving pies, celebrate 25 Christmas mornings with the favorite “puffy” omelet. It was usually puffy that is, and many jokes were made when it wasn’t.
The view from the front windows, which always leaked great cascades of frozen air in the winters, was certainly beautiful and I do miss looking out at the water. With backwards vision, I now know I took it for granted. It would always be there. I didn’t need to pay it homage all the time. Why didn’t I look out more often? I missed so much. It was a constant flow of life right outside our dirty windows (which, we found out, were permanently salt-etched and would need to be replaced, costing thousands of dollars we didn’t have. It’s always something, isn’t it?
The summer geese were lifting off from the cove, starting on their their noisy flight south. One was badly injured and could not fly. I ran out into the chill, forgetting my coat (which doesn’t zip any more anyway) to take him the dried corn I had stashed for the squirrels. I wanted this goose to fly! To escape the coming ice!! My heart was filled with hope. I reached out my hand to drop him the corn. He hissed, cracked me on the wrist with a hammer blow from his beak with his good wing flapping, he came after me with missile-speed. “Ungrateful, stupid crap-head bird!” I yelled back into the wind “Go ahead and die!!” I slicked my way back up the icy hill, glad that the windows are dirty. Besides, it was getting too dark to see.
In the morning I saw him, stretched out brown-black-white in a design of death. I was stricken with sadness, a despair so deep, but, if I’m honest, not wholly unexpected. I knew when I left him that he would not survive the night intact. Both of us angry, scared, so fearful of each other. If we had trusted, would the outcome have changed? Would we have been changed by the connection? How many other conversations have I hung up on? How many have disconnected me? I’ll never know.
Guilt is not a ransom to be paid for being human. It exists merely to punish ourselves for who we really are. I’m sorry about the goose. I’m sorry about the house – but the cold of the winter will always win out in the end. Time to go home.
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