Writer's Block: Places to Lay Your Head
I've lived in so many different abodes that I'm not entirely sure I can tally all of them.
There was the string of cabin's and houses that my parents moved us around to in the early years of my childhood: the cottage in Bemidji behind the old people's house, the one with the big double sink that Andrew and I used to take baths in, the one by a lake, the blue one, the white farmhouse near the railroad tracks. I only have hazy images of most of those residences, many from pictures. The farmhouse stands out particularly well in snapshots of lying in bed with my mother while Andrew nursed at her breast, of running among the huge cylindrical hay bales in the field, and laying pennies on the railroad track and coming back to find them squished flat on the rails.
The first home I have any concrete memory of was the house we moved to just before my parents separated. It was on Mallard Point Road on Prairie Lake. The landlord was the principal of my elementary school, Mr. Dorn. He lived in the basement, we lived upstairs. It had great windows overlooking the lake.
After kindergarten we moved into town, just a few blocks from my school. We called that house The Crooked House; it was so old and decrepit that it all sort of tilted to the left. The walls were paper thin, the stairs creaked, and I was sure that the wood stove would burn it down one day. Instead the fire department condemned and then burned it as practice after we moved out.
My dad bought 20 acres of land about 20 miles to the northeast of town and built us a timber-framed cabin as practice for the large house he planned to build all by hand. It was 10' x 12' and had a loft where Andrew and I slept. While we lived there my stepmother came to live with us. We had no running water and no electricity. I often joke that I didn't need to read Little House on the Prairie, I lived it.
Eventually the larger house was built, with modern conveniences (for which I am very grateful to my stepmother), though I still had a loft room with only a curtain for a door.
For my junior year of high school I traveled to Norway and lived in the town of Grimstad with a delightful host family. I was thrilled to have my own room there.
Upon my return from Norway I came to the Bay Area and lived in Mountain View with my mom and stepdad. From there I moved in with Guy in his house in Menlo Park, a darling little bungalow in the not-so-fashionable part of town. We sold that after Kaelyn was born and moved to an apartment in San Jose to be closer to the MW Media offices in downtown SJ. A year or so later we bought the house on Glenbar Avenue in Sunnyvale. I loved the Glenbar house and took delight in painting the rooms myself, tearing out old carpet and flooring, opening the wall between the kitchen and the living room. I chose it for it's proximity to the park and for the bones of the place, seeing potential for a beautiful house, despite the years of deferred maintenance and often baffling quick fixes the original owner had made over the years.
It wasn't until Guy and I separated that I actually lived on my own. I rented an apartment a few blocks away, still close to the girls' school, and learned to love living in silence and having a space that was entirely my own. Two years later I met Kevin and we moved into my friend Matt's condo on the other side of Sunnyvale. When it became apparent that the space there was too small, we rented the house on Bellomo, until last year when the landlady turned into a raging psycho and we settled here in Santa Clara. I am content where we are now.
There was the string of cabin's and houses that my parents moved us around to in the early years of my childhood: the cottage in Bemidji behind the old people's house, the one with the big double sink that Andrew and I used to take baths in, the one by a lake, the blue one, the white farmhouse near the railroad tracks. I only have hazy images of most of those residences, many from pictures. The farmhouse stands out particularly well in snapshots of lying in bed with my mother while Andrew nursed at her breast, of running among the huge cylindrical hay bales in the field, and laying pennies on the railroad track and coming back to find them squished flat on the rails.
The first home I have any concrete memory of was the house we moved to just before my parents separated. It was on Mallard Point Road on Prairie Lake. The landlord was the principal of my elementary school, Mr. Dorn. He lived in the basement, we lived upstairs. It had great windows overlooking the lake.
After kindergarten we moved into town, just a few blocks from my school. We called that house The Crooked House; it was so old and decrepit that it all sort of tilted to the left. The walls were paper thin, the stairs creaked, and I was sure that the wood stove would burn it down one day. Instead the fire department condemned and then burned it as practice after we moved out.
My dad bought 20 acres of land about 20 miles to the northeast of town and built us a timber-framed cabin as practice for the large house he planned to build all by hand. It was 10' x 12' and had a loft where Andrew and I slept. While we lived there my stepmother came to live with us. We had no running water and no electricity. I often joke that I didn't need to read Little House on the Prairie, I lived it.
Eventually the larger house was built, with modern conveniences (for which I am very grateful to my stepmother), though I still had a loft room with only a curtain for a door.
For my junior year of high school I traveled to Norway and lived in the town of Grimstad with a delightful host family. I was thrilled to have my own room there.
Upon my return from Norway I came to the Bay Area and lived in Mountain View with my mom and stepdad. From there I moved in with Guy in his house in Menlo Park, a darling little bungalow in the not-so-fashionable part of town. We sold that after Kaelyn was born and moved to an apartment in San Jose to be closer to the MW Media offices in downtown SJ. A year or so later we bought the house on Glenbar Avenue in Sunnyvale. I loved the Glenbar house and took delight in painting the rooms myself, tearing out old carpet and flooring, opening the wall between the kitchen and the living room. I chose it for it's proximity to the park and for the bones of the place, seeing potential for a beautiful house, despite the years of deferred maintenance and often baffling quick fixes the original owner had made over the years.
It wasn't until Guy and I separated that I actually lived on my own. I rented an apartment a few blocks away, still close to the girls' school, and learned to love living in silence and having a space that was entirely my own. Two years later I met Kevin and we moved into my friend Matt's condo on the other side of Sunnyvale. When it became apparent that the space there was too small, we rented the house on Bellomo, until last year when the landlady turned into a raging psycho and we settled here in Santa Clara. I am content where we are now.