(no subject)
Well, classes are over and, even though it would probably behoove me to start on my papers tonight, all I really want to do is sit on the porch where it's nice and cool and smell the rain. So it finally seems the appropriate time to do my post on the Dacie Moses House.
I don't think I've made an announcement yet, but Steph and I are staying here next year. I would have been happy to see the House lived in by someone who loved it as much as we do, but no such person emerged, and that's fine too. I don't feel ready to give up living in this house yet. There's nowhere else like it, at Carleton or probably anywhere. On the one hand, it's the only house with only two student residents, and on a quiet night like tonight, it feels like we have the whole thing to ourselves. Yet it is really everyone's house. Anyone can walk in at any time and bake cookies, play the piano, sit in the comfy armchairs, play board games. That is the hardest thing about living in the House, and the thing I would miss the most.
Very few places like this can exist in this cynical world. Our front door is never locked. We cook food for whoever shows up to Sunday brunch. If three groups are trying to bake cookies at the same time, we've gotten very good at sharing. Sometimes on weeknights the house is full of people, baking, studying, singing in the acapella groups that traditionally practice in the living room. Weekend nights we usually host crowds of loud, happy, hungry drunk people. We have a guest room, known only through word of mouth, where alums and parents usually stay and partake of the madness. Living in a house with only a few other people, with no public spaces and only personal possessions would at this point seem kind of wrong. Friends are one thing, but this is a community.
Yes, some people take advantage of the House's openness. Visitors often make messes without cleaning them up or borrow things from the kitchen without returining them. Steph and I have learned the hard way to mark our leftovers and even lock our bedroom door after she had two different cellphones stolen (the saddest and most shocking event of the year). Yet, as a former resident said, things have a way of working out at Dacie's. There are more than enough people who care about the House and give of themselves to make sure it's maintained. Like the random girl (bless her!) who decided to clean our every dirty dish very late one Saturday night. Like Saira, who gave us her company, countless batches of muffins and hours of cooking and cleaning help and mended our falling-apart cookbooks. Like Katie, a community member who used our house to meditate and to cook when she didn't have a permanent place to stay and repaid us by leaving our grody refrigerator spotless.
I believe in this house, in the living spirit of the generous old woman who died a few years before I was born. We only do what she did: we make her house a home for whoever needs it. And of course, I believe in the power of food to bring people together. I love making huge amounts of food for brunch, rushing around like a crazy person with my hands covered in flour. And I love the fact that this house lets people just muck around in the kitchen, make mistakes and see what happens. That's how I learned to cook, making bread at four in the morning even though I had no idea how (and often not cleaning up after myself... heh, that's karma for you). I think spaces of trust, where people can just be themselves, need to exist.
I'm glad things are not over yet. There's much more I'd like to do here. I'm especially glad to have such a wonderful role model in the house caretaker, Julia. She is unfailingly friendly and always looking out for ways to help people through the House, whether inviting our neighbors over for homemade ice cream, offering to make traditional foods for homesick international students stuck here over Christmas break, or putting fresh flowers from her garden on the dining room table. I think I have a lot to learn about the joy and hospitality that Dacie embodied. And I am just plain glad to live in a place that, as I said when I first moved here, gives me a real context. I can no longer imagine living in a dorm, eating institutional food, spending my days locked in the library. Despite the continued insanity of being a student, my life feels so much more healthy here.
This is home. That's all there is to it.
I don't think I've made an announcement yet, but Steph and I are staying here next year. I would have been happy to see the House lived in by someone who loved it as much as we do, but no such person emerged, and that's fine too. I don't feel ready to give up living in this house yet. There's nowhere else like it, at Carleton or probably anywhere. On the one hand, it's the only house with only two student residents, and on a quiet night like tonight, it feels like we have the whole thing to ourselves. Yet it is really everyone's house. Anyone can walk in at any time and bake cookies, play the piano, sit in the comfy armchairs, play board games. That is the hardest thing about living in the House, and the thing I would miss the most.
Very few places like this can exist in this cynical world. Our front door is never locked. We cook food for whoever shows up to Sunday brunch. If three groups are trying to bake cookies at the same time, we've gotten very good at sharing. Sometimes on weeknights the house is full of people, baking, studying, singing in the acapella groups that traditionally practice in the living room. Weekend nights we usually host crowds of loud, happy, hungry drunk people. We have a guest room, known only through word of mouth, where alums and parents usually stay and partake of the madness. Living in a house with only a few other people, with no public spaces and only personal possessions would at this point seem kind of wrong. Friends are one thing, but this is a community.
Yes, some people take advantage of the House's openness. Visitors often make messes without cleaning them up or borrow things from the kitchen without returining them. Steph and I have learned the hard way to mark our leftovers and even lock our bedroom door after she had two different cellphones stolen (the saddest and most shocking event of the year). Yet, as a former resident said, things have a way of working out at Dacie's. There are more than enough people who care about the House and give of themselves to make sure it's maintained. Like the random girl (bless her!) who decided to clean our every dirty dish very late one Saturday night. Like Saira, who gave us her company, countless batches of muffins and hours of cooking and cleaning help and mended our falling-apart cookbooks. Like Katie, a community member who used our house to meditate and to cook when she didn't have a permanent place to stay and repaid us by leaving our grody refrigerator spotless.
I believe in this house, in the living spirit of the generous old woman who died a few years before I was born. We only do what she did: we make her house a home for whoever needs it. And of course, I believe in the power of food to bring people together. I love making huge amounts of food for brunch, rushing around like a crazy person with my hands covered in flour. And I love the fact that this house lets people just muck around in the kitchen, make mistakes and see what happens. That's how I learned to cook, making bread at four in the morning even though I had no idea how (and often not cleaning up after myself... heh, that's karma for you). I think spaces of trust, where people can just be themselves, need to exist.
I'm glad things are not over yet. There's much more I'd like to do here. I'm especially glad to have such a wonderful role model in the house caretaker, Julia. She is unfailingly friendly and always looking out for ways to help people through the House, whether inviting our neighbors over for homemade ice cream, offering to make traditional foods for homesick international students stuck here over Christmas break, or putting fresh flowers from her garden on the dining room table. I think I have a lot to learn about the joy and hospitality that Dacie embodied. And I am just plain glad to live in a place that, as I said when I first moved here, gives me a real context. I can no longer imagine living in a dorm, eating institutional food, spending my days locked in the library. Despite the continued insanity of being a student, my life feels so much more healthy here.
This is home. That's all there is to it.