Chapter 12: Nesting at Number 5
While I was at the beginning of a new life phase, building a new home, my father seemed to be heading towards the end of another life phase.
Read the previous chapters here.
A home is the invisible space between four walls and a brick roof. Home is not the shelter the walls give from a day of pouring rain, but a shelter for the heart. Home is the first root that trails down into the earth of our being and connects us to a time and place that is uniquely ours. Home is a place where you can exhale a sigh of relief.
I finally had a home again.
My new home was the third flat in a row I’d lived in that was located at number 5. If this were a fictional story, the unlikely coincidence of the main character living in multiple places all at the same number wouldn’t pass from the editor’s desk. But this was reality, and often reality is absurd.
For me, my new home was like the peaceful silence after a big bang.
A one-bedroom flat up on the fifth floor of a narrow, late 19th-century Modernist building. The freshly painted walls were bare, the windows were new. It lacked the panoramic balcony I’d left behind in the previous flat I shared. But this place was all mine and that privilege gave it all the magic it needed to become one day my home.
Like a hurricane survivor, what I did after the storm passed was to start rebuilding, brick by brick. It was just the 21st-century version of laying bricks for a new foundation: assembling Ikea furniture.
As I moved in during the merciful December, Christmas was right around the corner. But I had decided to spend it alone, in my new home. For the first time, not being close to family during the winter holidays was easy. I didn’t feel lonely, I was together with my new home, as if she were another entity, a gentle whale in whose belly I sat and rested. When I’d get out for errands I’d feel my new home like an imprint on my skin, following me around, like a trailing scent of perfume.
During that merciful December, I spent lots of time in between those walls, like a cat brushing against table legs, her tail sweeping every corner of every room, marking her territory.
Part of nesting was to create the actual nest. I assembled an entire home's worth of furniture. Chests of drawers and nightstands, coffee tables, chairs and a desk.
Working with my hands gave me a deeper appreciation of all the people who work with their hands, gardeners and carpenters and sculptors. It kept me in the present moment, that elusive drop in time, the only one when we exist, the only one we run away from.
I was turning screws, I was matching pieces of wood together to form rectangle boxes before they would become drawers. Finding the right screw for the right opening. Manually turning the screws into place. Screw, screw. Pause for air. Turn the wooden plank. Screw, screw. Pause for air. A rhythmical activity, a different kind of meditation.
In January, together with the New Year, my father also arrived in town to see my new place and provide his fatherly help. He gifted me a toolbox, equipped with a hammer, pliers and a couple of screwdrivers. I was amused at his desire to help me rebuild my life, quite literally. Having Dad in town made me feel supported, protected.
But I quickly realized my father was not the strong, middle-aged man I had seen last. On our first stroll through my new neighborhood, he walked slowlier than I remembered, laughing away a minor back pain, as he called it. But my unruly father was now walking like an elderly man. Having to slow down my own walking pace to match his current strength sent darts of panic straight through my brain.
When my new bookcase was delivered, my father feigned having a painless back, excited to build it for me. His frailty made me wonder if he was actually capable of it. We started unpacking the shelves and I purposely lifted the heavier ones to spare him the embarrassment. I recognized his need to build the bookcase for me, to feel still strong to do it. To help me piece together my new life. I let him suffer through his visible agony when bending to pick up a piece of wood or screwing a shelf into place, to allow him the dignity of still being helpful to his daughter.
With every frown of pain I saw on his face, my alarm at my father’s mortality increased.
His hollow cheeks were the sign of old age that freaked me the most. He hadn’t just lost weight. He had lost the plumpness he always had, having wide, fleshy jaws; the cheekbones suddenly the most visible part of his face. I felt the urge to touch his face more, to check that that part of him was still there. I had the urge to hug him more, to keep him longer in the present. To force time to stand still.
For most of our lives, we take for granted that our parents are not immortal, that they will always be there to support us. But a sudden change in their physical features can throw one off guard.
While I was at the beginning of a new life phase, building a new home, all mine, my father seemed to be heading towards the end of another life phase: his robust middle age was coming to an end.
Somehow, my new awareness of my father’s mortality brushed off me too, and I started having an acute fear of dying. Living seemed increasingly urgent. And for me, living still meant finding a man to share my new home with.
I love this chapter Monica! Nice choice of words and I could feel your emotions and the worries for the parents.
Wow. That was pretty deep. Thanks for sharing.