Our House in the Middle of Our Street

Our house it has a crowd
There's always something happening
And it's usually quite loud
Our mum she's so house-proud
Nothing ever slows her down
And a mess is not allowed

Mrs. Taylor loves our house. She walks in and tells us how she adores the carpet in the foyer and the dark red walls in our dining room and the skylights in the kitchen. Mom loves it too, because it's exactly the way she wanted it. Daddy says he loves it, but it's hard to believe him when he's so insistent on moving 3000 miles away to a house that's falling apart.

I remember the remodel. I even remember the house before the remodel. Allison doesn't. I remember the architects coming over when I was four and talking with my parents about different kinds of windows and walls and how to expand the kitchen and if it was safe to build a room above the garage. I remember the sticky blue wallpaper with white flowers that used to be in the kitchen, and the dirty white carpets that used to cover our entire house. I remember mom prying up the carpets, telling us not to step because we'd hurt our bare feet on the splinters and staples on the floor. I remember sharing a room with Allison, and having comforters that were yellow on one side and blue on the other, and beds that stacked on top of each other if we wanted them to be bunk beds, but mom wouldn't let us because we were too little and whoever was on top would surely fall off. And I remember going into that room for a time out, together with Allison because we'd both done something wrong, and Allison was so mad about being in time out that she started peeling the Sesame Street wallpaper off of the walls, and I remember telling her not to, not because I wanted to be a good kid but because I loved that wallpaper, and I remember mom coming in to tell us we were done with  time out and seeing all the wallpaper on the ground and becoming furious, and of course not believing that I had nothing to do with it, and saying we would never have wallpaper again. Boy was I angry. I also remember the playroom, just a bit. I remember that yellow ball we used to have with neon pink and orange and green spikes that stuck out, that made noises as Allison and I threw it to each other. I remember playing with it in the carpeted playroom, with the TV on top of some tall piece of furniture, some nights watching Bill Nye the Science Guy with dad and mom and Allison. I remember being really excited about the show, but Allison didn't like Bill Nye and she was sooooo boredddddd and Erin will you please come play with me? Erin you're such a mean sister. Erin this is a grown up show. Erin you're so boring. Erin Erin Erin and taking my favorite favorite blankey so I had to get off of daddy's lap and chase after her.

Anyway, I remember the remodel. I remember moving into that little house on the same street, and the builders saying it would only take six months and then mom becoming frustrated as they increased it to eight... ten... twelve... and finally finished the house fifteen months later. I remember the tall chairs in that house, how the whole thing was dark and brown and the kitchen was tiny and the backyard didn't fit a swingset. I remember how we put those beds together into a bunk bed in that house because they barely fit in our room when we put them side by side. I remember how we found out that Allison was allergic to dust mites so she got to get her own room with special pillows and blankets and I had to share with Charles, and he was still in diapers. I remember how then I was always on the top bunk because of course Charles would fall off, and that once Allison and I got Charles up there when Lizzie was babysitting and she told us that if we got him up there, we'd have to get him down, and how my parents never asked her to babysit after that. I remember watching the remodel, watching as our nice front lawn turned into a huge pile of dirt, and walking through the house a year into it, seeing the framework for the second floor and wondering how it could ever be turned back into a house again.
But now it is a house, and that was twelve years ago and it is hard to imagine it looking any different. It's not that our house is that big, but it's big enough to fit us and we love it because it's so us, so ours. It's this nice piece of art work-- the mural in the dining room that was supposed to be a painting of the farm in maryland? You know it because it's where we always take pictures before dances, but that mural took our family friend a whole summer to paint. It has rolling hills and bright blue sky and a pretty tire swing and other aspects with little resemblance the the hot, flat, buggy Maryland that I know. It shows a successful Christmas tree farm, one that in real life has never sold very many trees, and the tiny beginnings of a vineyard that has grown tremendously in the seven or so years since the mural was painted. There's a piece of art in the living room too, a more unique piece that can't quite be classified under any one medium, squares of texture stick out from it and I look at it differently every time I see it. It matches the big, light brown sofa with the green and red pillows and the white blanket. Our baby grand piano is also in that room and it doesn't match anything, but I never notice that because it's a piano and that's where it works best, and to whine about such an istrument would be a sin. And the backyard, I love the backyard. We have those two identical houses, the playhouse and the shed, and I remember that summer when dad painted them yellow and orange and green and used the extra paint to draw on the fence; circles and squares and triangles, the word BIG in big block letters and below it little in smaller lettering. The fence facing it has names of aunts and uncles and cousins, still in extra paint from the playhouses. But that was a decade ago and dad repainted the playhouse and the shed five years ago so the fences don't match anything, and Allison and her friends have spent the last two summers painting random names and inside jokes in pink and purple over the yellow and green on the fences so it's hard to tell what anything says anymore. People always ask about it, why our fence says "Kitaly" and "This is not my shirt" and under them "Big" and "Aunt Karen." They looked alright when we had a swingset in our yard, but we gave that away when Charles came home for break and now we have a nice yard and colorful fences. And to me, there is nothing wrong with that.
The rooms, they took a little more getting used to. Mine is the littlest, which offended me when we moved back because I'm the oldest, but daddy said they made the room especially for me. Of course I didn't like it, it was too small to fit the desk and the bed so Allison got my desk, and it had a random area in the corner that was supposed to be for a second closet but why would I need two closets? So there were no doors put on that area and it stuck out uncomfortably, irritably, as we tried to find wallpaper and bedding that might work. I used by grandmother's old dresser for a couple years and then one day daddy came out of the garage with a big grid of wood, all put together and painted, and asked if I could help him take it upstairs. MY DRESSER! Drawers taken out of course, but daddy had built me a dresser! And later a bookshelf, and repainted the bed...
We have a guest living with us for the next two weeks, a family friend from Australia. She's Allison's age and she'll be in my room, and I have trouble permitting that. I don't mind sleeping on the couch, but that's my dresser and my book shelf and I picked the wall paper. Really we're sharing it and she just happens to be the one sleeping in it, but will she be okay with it, will she like the little jewelry box from San Francisco and the 12x18 inch painting of a dragon flying through the sky, a gift from Charles last Christmas? How can she appreciate the drawing of my grandmother or the plastic horse that my parents call clutter? Then again, how could she appreciate the clutter in the play room either? Or all the games in the living room, and the advent calendar in the dining room? I do not think it is clutter, I think it is a home. I think it is a house that has been lived in and loved in, and it would not make sense to take out the piano or my book shelf or the patriotic carpet in the playroom. Even wth the remodel of my parents' dreams, it has funny places that stick out and clutter everywhere and it is never clean enough for guests--no house is ever clean enough for guests--but it is big enough for us and clean enough for us and colorful enough for us and that's the way I love it.

A clean house is a sign of a wasted life.