Someone might enjoy this....a tribute to 106 Easthaven

Some people talk about ghosts while others talk about ghouls, goblins, and gremlins. I still do not know where I stand on the issue when it comes to my house. Put in mildest terms, my house is atypical. It belongs in an Agatha Christi novel. With its lurid red walls, the living room would be the perfect backdrop if Colonel Mustard were to kill Miss Scarlet with the candlestick. A frosted glass light fixture hangs in the middle of the room, but its small size and low wattage leaves everything in shadow.

The dining room resembles a funeral parlor with its dusty pink floral wallpaper, brass candelabras, and heavy linen curtains. The house is quirky. Without realizing it I have fallen in love with the sea foam green laminated countertops in the kitchen and cherry wood floors. What I love most, however, are the endless numbers of doors.

One time I had a friend over to spend the night. I had gone to the bathroom and when I came back, I found her opening doors. Before I could ask what she was doing, she exclaimed, “I have never been in a house with this many doors. Not only that, but there are doors that lead to other doors. I keep expecting to find an end to them, but I don’t.” She looked half-horrified when she told me this, as if she assumed that I did not know that my house tends to lead you into closets that lead you into small rooms that lead you into attic crawl spaces.

From one of the guest bedrooms on the second floor, I can access two of these crawl spaces. One leads me to another bedroom on the second floor. The other one leads me over to my parent’s room on the first floor. I can get out into their closet by moving a board in the ceiling. If it wasn’t for the loose installation and boiling summer temperatures, I would think about making forts in them. The possibilities for freaking people out are endless.

With oddities like these, I expected the house to be a peculiar, but I did not expect it to have a personality. I should have known better. It is not a new home by today’s standards. Having been built 35 years ago, creaks are to be expected. Several flukes we have been able to write off. For instance the cold draft that is ever present in one spot in the kitchen is not the result of a dead spirit drifting by. It is an oven flue. And the silverware drawer that swings open, when you know that you closed it, is bad craftsmanship not a gremlin.

Still, I cannot shake the feeling that my parents and I are not the only residents at 106 Easthaven Drive. The man who lived in the house before us was a widower. His wife died of cancer three months after the addition over the garage was built. Before we moved in, he told us that the addition had been her dream, and she died at its completion. Prone to my imagination, I thought up lots of wild stories about his dead wife.

Despite my overactive imagination, I am not to blame for everything. When the man gave us the keys to the house, he left a leather keychain with them. We tried to return it, but he wouldn’t take it. It had his wife’s name stamped on it, JOAN, in big block letters. Seeing her name attached to the keys, I sometimes think she still owns the house. After that, we came to blame all the daily oddities that occur on Joan.

Like the time mom was walking through the garage and a glue bottle flew across the room and hit her on the head. Normally, I would say that the glue bottle fell off a shelf as she walked by, but mom was in the middle of the garage with no shelving units within eight feet of her. Because she was alone when the glue bottle hit her, she got spooked and walked around to the back to the house. By going to the backdoor, she was trying to avoid another trip through the garage. As she was reaching for the door handle, however, the door swung open by itself. Brave soul that she is, she entered the house again. We still cannot figure that mystery out.
On top of flying glue bottles and self-opening doors, the TV also has a tendency to turn on by itself. We will be working in the kitchen or upstairs and next thing we know Rachel Ray is blasting in the den. Maybe Joan likes to cook.

Lastly, voices outside the second story windows and the footsteps that are always just around the corner are commonplace. It was weeks before I was used to them.
Thinking about my house, I still don’t know if I believe in ghosts. They seem silly, but I cannot deny that my house has a personality. It is eccentric, a bit moody, and has frightened my family on more than one occasion.

I, however, love my house. It is comfortable in a macabre sort of way. Having lived there for a few years now, I have no qualms walking in the dark. I rarely turn on the lights even when I’m home alone because there are so many switches. Turning them on would be more effort than it’s worth. As a result, I walk in the dark more often than not.

Ironically, I had horrible night terrors at our previous home in Michigan. Even though that home was void of quirks, I was afraid to be alone till the day we moved when I was sixteen. And yet this home, with its copious evidence of weird, unexplainable happenings fails to scare me. I accept living with things that go bump in the night and the footsteps in my hall are familiar. It is ghoulish in a predictable way. All I can think is that the house has too much personality to stay quiet.

(Side Note: I realize the living room is no longer red...)

on a happy note...

I GOT ACCEPTED TO NOLS. YAY!

In Praise of Grief:

This is not an original idea, but in a pleasure-driven society, it is an idea worth re-visiting. To begin, are you happy? If you answer “yes” then congratulations. You have achieved the American Dream. If you answer “no” then walk to the nearest book store, and buy a book about achieving happiness. Lose that weight. Take that vacation. Find that lover. Whatever you do, get happy.

My next question is: why are you worried about being unhappy? Is there something fundamentally wrong or sinful about this state? No, there is not.

It has come to my attention that life would be easier if I just didn’t care. If I didn’t care that my brother and his wife had lost their first child, if I didn’t care that my grandfather died, if I didn’t care that my uncle was in the hospital not responding to treatments for pneumonia, then life would be a lot less painful. Then again, that wouldn’t be much of a life.

Have you thought about how hard it is to love? Love bears all things; love believes all things; love hopes all things; love endures all things. To love is a tall order. It hurts, but it defines life.

To end, I ask permission to grieve. Let me not seek pleasure for awhile, because that is an okay thing to do.

happy new year

Well, we find ourselves in 2009 already. Oh boy, it is a new year filled with a bunch of new adventures, I hope. I've neglected my blog, and I feel ashamed. It's like ignoring an orpphaned child. I've shoved it aside and occupied myself with too many fruitless activities (like facebook---it's way too addictive for anybody's good), but I'm back!

I'm poised for action, and waiting for adventure...the anticipation is tangible enough to taste. Wheaton won't know what's hit them. Everyone on campus will know ME. bahahahhah. Not really, but this semester I am hoping to find new stories, make more memories, meet lots of people, and get my GPA up to snuff (woops, sorry about last semester mum and dad). I'll be keeping you updated as best I can. Until then, I'm signing out.

Peace.

Thought for the day:

So I can’t remember what exactly I was conflicted about on November 11, but I’m sure it was angsty. I can only cling onto my teenage angst for another year. Being 19, my time to use that excuse is running out. What will I turn to in my twenties? I can’t use mid-life crisis because I’m banking on my twenties not being the middle of my life. If they were, that would mean I’d live till my forties, and that’s just too short. Then again, I’m not afraid to die. Death has lost its sting, if you know what I mean.

It’s kind of sweet to live under that reality, and when I say sweet, I mean it too. I’m not throwing that term out like so many generic, over-used adjectives. For example, “awesome”—I throw the word “awesome” around so frequently that I can only come to two conclusions. Either I am easily awe-inspired or I don’t use the word correctly. To be struck with awe is something that should be reserved for incredible things not common-place events….I’ll work on that.

Anyways it is Thanksgiving break, and I’m glad to be home. I have to be honest, though. I was not looking forward to this break. I didn’t want to come home. My last time here was difficult. Attending your grandfather’s funeral is not something you want to do. He was a great man, a quiet man, a gentle man, a loving man, a generous man, a wise man, but most of all he was my grandpa. I miss him.

Despite my misgivings, however, this break has been wonderful. Rarely have I been so encouraged. I’m discovering how much my family loves me. Not only do they love me, but they also respect me. I’ve had so many projects hanging over my head, that I’ve spent half my time this break huddled in a corner, clicking at a keyboard. They have given me the space and permission to do that. Thank you.

Now for some updates: I’ve started a writing and literature group at Wheaton. Yay! As of now we only have three members (me being one of them), but it is still fun. The two boys, Caleb and Jeremy, are full of ideas. Whenever our group meets, I get all excited and start talking faster. We just finished reading Stephen King’s book, On Writing, and are now working on writing short stories.

Side note: I talk faster and gesticulate more whenever I’m talking about English. I’m a nerd. Oh I also love editing. It is invigorating, and I’ve come to a point where people are giving me their stuff to peruse and edit. Their trust gives me hope that pursuing a career in English is not a vain hope.

That’s all for now. I need to be writing Anthropology paper. Peace.

I'm conflicted.

That's all I have to say right now. I hope to expound on that soon, but right now I should go to bed, and my computer is about to die anyways.