A Home as a Museum, a Monument, a Mess, Part I

One day - I hope - to have a son or daughter-in-law. Someone to weave into the fabric of my house, my family. I say my house because I realize that this place is a museum of family history, family travels, deaths, divorces, children, triumphs, defeats. Much of the history I am the keeper of is, in fact, not mine. It is borrower. I tend it, but in the end, it will pass away from me.

So enter my home, I motion to the invisible in-law to-be. It is an Italianate Victorian on a sweet little street. Italianate refers, as far as I understand, to the front area. Double window. Single Door. Double window. Decorative features, but not nearly as over-the-top as the standard Victorian, nor so heavy as the Edwardian.

And then there's my street. Lundy's Lane. Named for a Battle of the War of 1812. Quoting from Wikipedia:

"The Battle of Lundy's Lane was a battle of the Anglo-American War of 1812, which took place on 25 July 1814, in present-day Niagara Falls, Ontario. It was one of the bloodiest battles of the war, and one of the deadliest battles ever fought on Canadian soil."

You really wouldn't know if from the street, I laugh. The prospective in-law laughs or doesn't. Nevertheless, I continue, this battle has raised enough interest that we have an annual block party end of each July and recently family friends traveled to the museum site of said battle, presenting us with Lundy's Lane paraphernalia. Edna and Peter, the organizers, will be ever so pleased next summer when we display our goods.

In all seriousness, I feel, given the age, fragility, etc. of the house, I am its caretaker as much as its owner. I think any San Franciscan feels this way. Homes in California crumble, buckle, slide. I know something my home's past - a divorce, AIDS death, a fire, a child with disabilities. One owner treasured it and restored. Another cheated us all by using inferior goods. But home is home. The place I raised my children. My house is delightful, annoying, dangerous, linsome, troublesome, tinged with beauty and on the verge of a breakdown.

See the resemblance, I laugh to my future in-law.

Oh dear.

DAYS TO 50: 421.