Pulling up princess trees
some untidy thoughts on home ownership
I am, and always have been, an uneasy homeowner. First, it was fear of commitment – I like to be free to leave. Then, it was some kind of religious hangup. Foxes have holes, birds have nests, but the Son of Man had no place to lay his head. Store up your treasures in heaven. Why build a bigger barn when you’re just going to die.
Lately – though I haven’t totally shed my wanderlust or my ascetic tendencies – it’s something much more basic: claiming responsibility for a place just means so much work and so much money.
The market was hot in Asheville last spring. Houses were being shown in fifteen minute increments. We drove up from Durham for our third househunting trip, saw four houses, made an offer on one, and when we were outbid, made an offer on another, not remembering much more about it than a vague impression that we could live there.
And then: weekends scraping off circus tent stripe and prison bar like and fruit and flower and unidentified swish of color wallpapers. Dan came down and helped us painfully peel off grasscloth wallpaper, some of which had been painted blood red. Jack scraped a swirled texture that someone had once loved off the ceilings, repairing and sanding them smooth. I took apart the kitchen cabinets, sanded, painted, and re-installed them; we re-painted the whole upstairs, and hung new wallpaper (that someone a decade from now, or maybe next year, will surely hate). We paid experts to remove the very old carpet and the very old vinyl countertop, and to put in wood floors and heavier counters. Jack built bookshelves.
In the first week after we moved in, the dishwasher broke, the air conditioner broke, the Radon reading came back too high, the costs of home ownership did not wait for us to get comfortably settled in. In the late winter, we realized that the old oil-based heating system would have to go, and when a weird wet spot showed up in the basement, we found out that the pipes behind our bathroom were just too old, and would have to be replaced as well.
To celebrate our one year anniversary, I pulled up the carpet and subflooring in the guest room, and primed and painted its pink walls green. Jack installed new cork floors. I don’t want to tell you how much it cost. I’m tired of adulting.1
Yesterday afternoon and again this morning before taking the kids to school, before it got too hot, I was up digging a trench for a retaining wall at the bottom of the hill our house is built into, a hill that ends right in front of the door that leads to the guest room. Dirt and debris find their way in because of this hill and its creeping ivy. All the autumn leaves pile up here and block the door.
I dug a trench, while Jack pruned azaleas (I know, we’re a little late), and pulled up princess trees and tree of heaven all over the yard, just as he’s been doing for months now. They keep coming back, no matter what we try.2
I don’t blame the last owner. She was getting older and living alone and I know the way that at some point you stop observing things you’re too close to. Stasis, and you lose the ability even to see what needs to change. It’s already started happening to me with this house. I don’t blame her, but I do think it’s fair to say that we bought a house that hadn’t been tended to for quite a while; we bought some land absolutely invaded by plants that are stronger than we are. The labor of caring for all of it is real labor.3 And yet— I don’t want to sell my kids on the good bones of the world without having done the work myself to make this place beautiful.4
I’m of (at least) two minds about all this. Part of me is simply irritated at whoever decided to make this key to the American dream, this single nuclear family home ownership bit, couldn’t we have planned this all a bit better?
And another part of me thinks how lovely it is to get to know a place down to its (broken) bones. Even if this whole system is faulty (and it is, but aren’t they all?), perhaps even within it, as we care for the small lots we’ve been given (or small families or bodies or bedrooms or bookshelves), we can learn to care for other damaged places, too. Anyway, that’s what I try to believe, as I learn where the pipes are buried and where the muscadines grow, walking the perimeter of the property and leaving a line of pulled princess trees behind me.
What, you think that stuff about the previous caretakers and the deep needs and the repetitive tasks might be about more than my house?
Three Things:
Ari Lamm’s twitter threads on why we should read the Bible in Hebrew always surprise me, and his most recent, which looks at textual parallels between a few Genesis passages, showed me something I’d never seen about Lot and Abraham’s separation! PS it is also about tending our small lands.
Every year for our anniversary, Jack and I make a playlist of songs we’ve loved in that year. (We used to also burn CDs and hand out the playlist with some original cover art by Jack, but, well, who plays CDs anymore?) Here’s Year 17. And by the way, we saw track one’s SG Goodman in concert last week and became even bigger fans (listen to Old Time Feeling!)
Ann Patchett’s latest novel is read by Meryl Streep, and Meryl Streep is a genius. Highly recommend for road trips! Or trench digging!
If you or someone you love is in the Asheville area, you are are invited to join my book club this fall! Details here — feel free to email me with questions.
Where Goodness Still Grows is available wherever books are sold. My first book, Dangerous Territory, has a second edition coming this fall; sign up for the Bracket newsletter to learn more.
And I don’t mean to complain, only to account; truly, I’m grateful for this house.
Your suggestions are welcome.
And I haven’t even begun to talk about the way the market-reflected gaze comes into this! but you should absolutely read Anne Helen Petersen on How Your House Makes You Miserable.
https://poets.org/poem/good-bones one thing that bugs me about this obviously powerful poem is that it’s like *you* could make this place beautiful, and, well, that’s a lot of pressure to put on the next generation
We call the “trees of heaven” stink trees. Mom called the Grove Park Inn to complain about the stink tree in our yard that came from the stink tree on their property. They sent someone to cut it down. I have wondered how they knew which one it was.
We are battling Chinese tallow, privet, bermuda grass, and burr clover at our place. The previous owner, Barry, was a wonky DIYer. Beloved guy, who loved his hope but did not always do things "up to code". But we love this house and fixing it up together is doing something inside our souls and our marriage. We removed the front lawn this spring and are replacing it with pollinators, pomegranates, and a vineyard. In the back we are slowly pulling out invase plants and replacing them with herbs and edibles, more pollinators, and milkweed for the monarchs. I'm hoping we can build raised beds next spring to share veggies with our neighbors. It has been good to dig into our little suburban lot with intention. I think about resale occasionally (are we nuts?), but it has been so good to do this work. Who cares!