The Big Brick Review

Building on the narrative of our lives...one brick at a time.

Moving

by Susan Bono

IN THE CONFUSION of lumber scraps, heaved earth, and ravaged lawn that has been our backyard for the last eight months, a tiny cottage has been born. All last spring I bent over blueprints, trying to imagine its future shape, feeling like a shipbuilder designing the cabin of a seaworthy craft. Throughout the golden Indian summer, men hefting tools with quiet ease hammered joists, fitted windows, skylights, pipes, and wiring. On an afternoon of impending rain, our builder made a steady dance against the sky as he nailed shingles along the roof’s sturdy spine. The gutter man and stucco crew have come and gone. The carpet spreads like thick moss, the hardwood entry gleams. Now this shelter’s lighted windows glow in the rain-sodden darkness that wraps our neighborhood this February evening.

This place is my new office, furnished at the moment with two camp chairs, a telephone, and an empty file cabinet. As soon as the cabinetmaker installs the long birch counter, I will begin the work of moving in.

Along with expense, risks, and decisions, each phase of building has brought its rituals. I dropped charms into the foundation footings: gifts of stones, shells, coins, a marble from my grandfather’s boyhood, two of my sons’ baby teeth. I pinned photos, poems, and tokens onto the studs and plywood sheathing. I wrote the names of those who love me on the unfinished sheetrock. I have felt like some off-kilter priestess invoking the blessings of heaven and earth.

I have been moving toward this place my whole life. The questions, intentions, and desires dreamed into the structure have already made it familiar. I seem always to have known the squeeze of the brass thumb latch, the slow swing of the mahogany door, the muted fire of the carnelian walls. Tonight, I give thanks to the many hands that were guided by this sometimes faltering heart, and for the construction that began so long ago.

This essay is part of Susan Bono’s What Have We Here: Essays about Keeping House and Finding Home (October 2014). For more, visit www.SusanBono.com.

"Moving" photo © 2014 Gregory Gerard