Morning all.For the first time in what seems like forever I got up and the sun decided to join me. I know it hasn’t been that long but the last few days have just been so gloomy. It kind of weights on you, or at least it does me. But today, there is sun. It’s that winter sun that lets you know it is icy cold outside, but it is still sun. So while enjou=ing the light, and the indoor heat, let’s go for the morning writing prompt.
This didn’t really thrill me. I think my weekend closet clearing may have had some hold overs.
Wednesday, February 3rd: She worked with enthusiasm.
She worked with enthusiasm. There was something cathartic about it, she decided. After years, decades even of watching the accumulation build, she was finally able to start clearing some of it away.
How many times had she spoken to her mother about this place? So many times she lost count. But it was the place that shall not be touched. The house, built by her great, great grandparents and lived in ever since had been passed from generation to generation, each leaving their imprint on the house.
One relative converted the house from gas to electric. Another added indoor plumbing and several bathrooms, someone or other added central heat and another person added a greenhouse around the back. It seemed that everyone was destined to add something to the house.
“Well almost everyone,” she admitted to herself as she pulled on her neoprene gloves.
By the time she came along it was her grandparent’s house and she had fond memories of visiting when she was young. She remembered when her grandparent’s passed on holiday gatherings to her mother and stopped having people over to the house. She hadn’t taken much note of it at the time as she was off at college and her mother was tickled to be the one who was granted leave to host Thanksgiving.
Then it hadn’t seemed like that big a deal, a passing of the torch to be sure, but nothing more. After her grandfather passed, her grandmother moved into a retirement home. The house was locked up, but kept as it was when she left. After she passed, her mother insisted that nothing be touched.
It became a memorial to the family. She never wanted to move out to the house and live in it, but she wouldn’t allow the house to be touched or changed in any way. It had to remain as it was when her mother locked the front door and no argument could sway her. That was just the way things were.
Now that her mother was gone, the house was hers to do with as she wished. What she most wished was to see the condition of the house. More so to see if it was livable. The place where she lived now was a pokey rental. It wasn’t much but it was inexpensive, convenient to work and it let her bank the bulk of her paycheck for a rainy day. In the past few months as her job switched to work from home, the pokey little apartment seemed to shrink around her making her feel trapped.
She knew that if made livable, this house would be more space than she needed, she would never need to feel hemmed in again. It had far more rooms than she needed, an entire greenhouse, and quite a lot of land attached to it. She knew she couldn’t bring herself to actually sell the family property unless she had no other choice, but the only real choice was to make it livable and live in it. She couldn’t afford to simply keep it up as a memorial.
Still even though she knew it was necessary and she was eager to work on the task every paper she put into the trash bag gave her a tiny prick of guilt. She could almost see the specter of her mother standing in the doorway and began to justify her choices as she worked, mocking the specter.
“Oh look a grocery store circular from 1982,” she said. “I can’t imagine why we wouldn’t want to keep that.” As her choices, at least at this point, were clear cut, she found the one sided conversation easing the guilt and speeding her work. She knew it would get worse when she reached the more personal areas but for now, she was able to work with enthusiasm.
Ten til Midnight 