A truck pulled into the drive today. We thought for a minute that it might be the brush hog guy, coming to retrieve the tractor we've been fostering for almost a year, but no. Turned out to be another grandson of Old Mr. Cook, and a friend of his. We suspect they'd heard the place had sold to foreigners and they wanted to check it out, as their initial introduction seemed a little off. (But then, all our initial introductions thus far have been less than encouraging, when it comes to this house and its former owners.)
Zorak popped his head in the house and gave me the Ten-Minute Warning. Then he ducked out to show the guys around while I cracked the whip and got everybody to help me do the panic tidy. It wouldn't have been bad, except we've been working this morning. Wiring, sorting, moving, nailing, sewing, trimming, and washing... I didn't figure "backwoods sweatshop" was a very inspiring theme for visitors.
The guys came in, and they were very nice. I'm sure all the changes were a bit of a shock. The first thing the young guy said when he came in wasn't "check out that cool arch" or "wow, it's so open and inviting". Nope, he swore under his breath and said to himself, "I can't believe you took out the bookshelves". Um, yeah, the bookshelves that harbored billions of mold spores. The bookshelves that had rotted away under years of bong water spills and incense smoke. Yeah, they had to go. Sorry. But still, it's hard to reconcile memories with reality. And even though *we* love all the things we've done to the house, we really don't like being the harbingers of death for fond memories.
After a while, though, hanging out at the island, drinking coffee, sharing stories of the place, seeing the work, and hearing about how all the choices had been made, he was happy to know that his family home is being loved. He dug the coat closet conversion, and could appreciate why we took the laundry out of the kitchen. He understood the importance of having the floor vent in the bathroom *not* wedged between the toilet and tub.
We now have two standing offers to buy the place should we ever decide to sell it. Both would put the property back in the hands of the original family, which gives us warm fuzzies. But that's not an option for a long, long time. We understand and appreciate that it was their home, but it's also our home now. Our Forever Home. And it means more to us with each month, each memory, each new discovery. One day it'll be our children who have all those memories attached to the creek, the barn, the Scary Room. And, like the young guy said, we "aren't from here, and aren't family, and no matter how nice (we) are, (we'll) never be from here". That's okay. The children are, and this is their heritage just as much as it is someone else's.
It does make me miss the Southwest a bit more, though. You don't have to be "from" there to be From There. You can be naturalized into the Southwest, by loving it and living it, by absorbing it and sharing with it. You don't stay a foreigner long in the Southwest. And while we do love it here, and this is where we're putting down roots, our roots don't go back three generations on this soil. So, no, we probably won't ever be From Here. But at least we're here.
Kiss those babies!
~Dy
6 comments:
Wow. That's sounds pretty rude. "You're not from here". It's not another country! That would have upset me for months. It sound like you are taking it a little better. Good for you. :-)
Oh, no, they didn't mean it to be rude, and actually on their way out said how glad they were to meet such nice folks. They offered to take Zorak hunting, and we gave them some wood blanks b/c one of them does woodworking and we had some stuff we can't use. We'll probably see them again.
Being "from around here" isn't something you can become. You either are. Or you aren't. We've met people who have lived in this area (meaning within, say, 10 miles of our house) for 30+ years who, if you ask if they're from here will gasp and say, "Oh, Lordy, no! I'm from *insert town ten miles down the road* and my husband is from way over in *insert town 15 miles down the road*."
Once, I met a lady in town who said she'd been all over and was new to the area. I asked her where she'd been and she said, "Oh, Tuscaloosa, Mobile, Montgomery..." All places within Alabama. LOL. It's just a different set of working definitions, that's all.
:-)
Dy
Shoot...me personally (as southerner whose family has been in the area I live in since 1760) would have to say to them..."If the darn property meant so much then why was it up for sale to begin with?"
Shoot.
I apologize for the lack of any manners of my fellow southerners.
And even ZooDad would agree and his momma lives on land that the family has owwn for 5 generations. If it had really mattered to them, they should have found a way. They didn't.
It must not have been that important to them.
Don't you let them make you feel guilty. The family has no one to blame but themselves.
You go on and love that Forever Home. I know your kids and grandkids won't make the same mistakes as your visitors did.
I am annoyed by the fact that they are even pestering you over this.
Ahhh thankfully they don't say that here, to our face at least. LOL
I'm glad you ended up having a nice visit considering the pretense.
Wow. They have some nerve, saying those things. I understand wanting to keep a family home in the family, but once they let it go and you are courteous enough to let them visit, you'd think they could be polite!
We've moved to exactly the same sort of area, and I am a little sorry about the fact we will be outsiders forever. Coming from Florida, where people are quickly accepted, it is hard to get used to the idea that people who moved in from a half houre away twenty years ago are still not "from here." The locals are friendly, but you can't help but notice that you are the only ones without all your extended family living within five miles. The town where we go to church, Sparta, is actually in the mountains and has more of a retiree/second home population, and most of the members of our congregation are Not natives. Now that we've bought the house, though, and put so much work into it, I think we will stay for quite a while anyway. Of course, we don't have the former owner's relatives nagging us to sell!
Yeesh! Well, I'm glad you had a nice visit, but I'm not sure if I could have taken it quite as well as you have. I'd like to know why they weren't dropping by on the previous occupants and giving them a hard time for all that they did to the place! Ahem.
Having lived in California all my life, where just about everyone is new, and people move all over the place at the drop of a hat it is really hard to imagine the mindset you describe. I have only encountered it in novels, and I was thinking it wasn't really something that existed much anymore!
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