The Curtain Also Rises

My mother had stated many times in the last two decades that she would never leave her house - the dream home she designed and built herself (with some help). It was the culmination of a lifetime of hope and saving. It was her ultimate art piece, her greatest source of pride.

She had lived there since 2000, guiding the building process along every step of the way as her friends and helpers slowly turned a vacant lot into a beautiful, spacious and modern home with soaring ceilings, massive gallery-style walls, an art studio, a Koi pond and generous entertaining spaces surrounding it.

It was truly a reflection of all she was, and was exactly the home she wanted to be surrounded and energized and inspired by every day of her life.

When she suddenly passed this year, my brother and I had to get to work to settle her affairs. After several weeks of labor and planning, we came to the same conclusion: we would have to sell her beautiful home.

This decision was not reached quickly or easily. 

We knew that selling this house to someone else meant we had to be 100% involved in the process of selecting the prospective buyer. We needed to be absolutely certain that the people who bought the house were artists, and understood and appreciated the house for exactly what it was created for. There would need to be art, life, joy, hope, inspiration, friends, and life in abundance.

Because in many very important ways, the home was her. Her home embodied all of the attributes of art, life, joy, hope, inspiration, friends and life. It was a work of spirit as much as of wood, stone and glass. There was absolutely no way to simply get rid of the old place and walk away clapping the dust off our hands in satisfaction. 

I reached an epiphany a few months ago that helped my brother and myself accept the idea of letting go of this treasured place that was so much a part of our mother, and I believe it is in tune with her life. As an art show or performance piece runs its course and eventually closes, so the curtain has closed on our mother's life in that house. Her scene has concluded, to a tearful standing ovation. 

And now, the curtain once again rises on a new life in that house, as we have a young couple buying the house just this week. They provided a letter of reference giving us some insight into their life, who they are, and just what they appreciate about the house. To us, they sound ideal: artistic and creative, joyful and enthusiastic, looking to be near family and friends. They are getting married later this month, they have a wonderful little golden doodle dog (which mom would have loved) and have already adopted the fish as their own, even before the paperwork is completed. 

My brother and I are very excited to know that the future occupants will love the house as much as we do, and have every intention of restoring it to its original glory without trying to change it into something it was never meant to be.

Our hope is that we can maintain a friendly relationship with them and be able to stop by from time to time for a visit. I'd like to see the Koi again and maybe tell some tales about my mom and maybe provide some insight as to a color choice or a architectural style. There's a lot to be known about the house, and my wish is that they are open to hearing all of the stories.

It sounds odd to say I'm handing my mom off to another family, but it feels that way in a lot of aspects. My prayer is that they take good care of her.

Depths

It is impossible to understand the true, full experience of another human being. Such experience is shaped, colored and seasoned with every nuance of every day, with all of the circumstances and events and interactions with others they know. To empathize with someone who's lived through something similar is almost disingenuous: each one lives a unique life and has a completely personal experience. 

2020 has been a very rough year. I doubt anyone could say otherwise. 

For my family, it has been particularly difficult.

I had always used my father as a high-water mark in terms of longevity. Despite having a family history of heart trouble and being the last surviving member of his family, he managed to keep hanging on and thriving. This year, though, after a few rounds of battling mouth cancer, he finally passed on at the age of 90. We were not exceedingly close, and our own family story is pock marked with unpleasant periods and silent epochs, as he and my mom had divorced before I turned a year old. Even so, we did enjoy talking from time to time, and had a similarly varied set of interests in language, physics, electronics, music and chemistry. 

In the mid 1980's, after my oldest brother passed away, dad re-entered our life in a significant way, moving into the house that my brother had owned. During one conversation, he, my older brother and I decided to start up a business together making and selling a waterless hand cleaner that dad had formulated back in the 1950s. Had we a greater sense of business acumen and were we less focused on determining which make and model our company car should be, we might have been very successful. 

My mother had enjoyed some success in her life as an artist, having taking up the paint brush at a young age and coming to full blossom not long after she and my father were married. Over the course of the following half a century, she made a large impact on the art scene in the central California valley. She had a number of shows at various galleries, developed great friendships with local, prominent artists, and managed to raise three boys on her whatever income she could make in that time. In the late 1990's she was able to sell her tract home and buy a residential lot for a good price, and have a custom home constructed. This was her dream home, her art home, her creative zenith realized in physical form. It was a showplace, a gathering place, a studio and a sculpture as much as it was a residence. 

She often said she could never imagine leaving this home. 

Earlier this year she was taken to the hospital with chest pains. As quickly as that, she passed away not even 24 hours later. My brother called me that morning to deliver the news. Both of us were completely stunned and heartbroken.

I can say that it was a blessing to know that neither my mom or my dad lingered through a prolonged illness, but it doesn't make it any less painful to accept the facts. 

This year has been very rough, more than I could have ever imagined any year could be. I think I can now empathize with others who have lost both parents for one reason or another. It is not a position I was hoping to gain, but that is how life goes. Some of it is what you bring to yourself, other parts are dealt to you. 

I'm done with this year.

  

Teenage Loudness

I had mentioned not too long ago that Michael's voice changed. This is hardly unexpected for a boy of fifteen. At some point, they all go through that transformation from child to man, and for some it is more rapid than others.

What I cannot understand, though, is what happened to his volume control.

The change in pitch I get: you get bigger, your resonant chamber grows and responds to deeper notes, your vocal chords elongate and vibrate slower. That all makes sense.

But the sudden, dramatic change in his loudness is what's puzzling me.

Whereas before he used a vocal level that was comfortably resting within the bounds of what we all have agreed to as an "inside voice", now his normal conversational level is somewhere around "chainsaw at two feet". In the space of less than a week he went from 5 to 11 on the volume knob.

It's amazing. Just listening to him at the dinner table is uncomfortable as he practically shouts at us, though he's less than 22 inches from my eardrums.

I have to constantly remind him to take it down a few notches. Of course, he responds to this admonition by producing the loudest whisper that is possible to make by the human larynx.

Some evenings his mom and I head upstairs early after having been worn to the nub by our respective workplaces (the fact that we're over 50 has nothing to do with it of course). Michael will remain downstairs "getting ready for bed" by singing, chasing the cats or hollering at whatever video game he's currently playing. And all of this sonic pressure blasts its way upstairs, making it nearly impossible for my wife and me to hold a conversation, despite a floor separation and a closed door. I am forced to storm downstairs and remind him yet again that he needs to tone it down and be considerate.

Naturally he has to whisper back: "OK!"

I suppose this is a normal teenage boy thing, and like every other phase will pass along into memory. But it sure is hard on my ears.

I wonder if they make those sound cancelling headphones in something that fits over a mouth.