Housing

Housing is like the not-quite-girlfriend I’ve never had. I’m shy about her existence, coy, and hesitate at showing her location. I’m playing a hedging game, and telling no one, and what will her parents, the bureaucracy, think of me? And what if the Mahr is insufficient? And what if she won’t even go to prom, or accept the roses and the card I labored so long on?

So I sequester my resolve and thoughts, knowing there is nothing of substance yet - not yet, no, please, I don’t know – and my heart races the hummingbird along, prodding at every flower until I find the perfect one.

I thought perfect love drove out fear. Does it not? Or is perfect love beyond me?

But it is working. Every day I laugh at smaller things – how hard can anything be? – if I can suffer being an adult for a month. Hah! If only they knew I planned on filling my house with ball-pit balls and legos, why, they certainly wouldn’t grant me a loan. And the sky was a granite countertop, looming overhead, and I, the toddler, beneath its hanging reach. Sometimes, I cannot even stand to touch the sky, or push back the clouds with my eyes.

As a child, I remember reading fairy tales where the king rewarded loyalty or heroic behavior with a boon. The king would say, “You may ask for anything, up to half the kingdom.” Invariably, the hero always asks for the princess’ or prince’s hand in marriage. I always thought this strange, as a child, despite the obviousness of the request, as the whole story always led up to that point. Still, every time I reached that point in the story, I wanted half of the land. I wanted to ask the king for half of the kingdom. I always imagined at this point the king would offer me half the land, and instead of ruling it, I’d set it free. Then I’d be able to wander the forests, the hills, the rivers for an eternity, living wherever I pleased.

I imagined that acquisition of place meant freedom of being.

This is not how it is with housing. I imagine by the time I acquire a house, it will be filled with the paperwork. It’s like the story Kraken, by Mieville, though I realize as I give that analogy, explaining it might spoil the outcome. It is the fear of the Wee Free Men, the magic of names, the Horned King appearing in my waking life, the frightful power of Yubaba in Spirited Away. It’s the losing of names, the scattering of self into the wind. In Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, a character at once discovers that he is being pursued, and he removes his shadow, gives the shadow his name, and leaves, nameless and savage in the form of a bear. This is what I believe the summer will do to me.

But I’m excited. I think after a month, I’ll be free, to a certain extent. And there is a peace in that revelation.