I'll Miss This House

I love sleeping with the dog. Waking up with the dog. Every night I take a bath. She knows it's close to bedtime. She waits on the bed. Susannah's in New York this week. I gotta move to our new house. Moving is like a death. Your own death by a bad disease. The memories and feelings in the house welling up while you fight transactions bills work money logistics man up etc.etc. Lifting heavy boxes in the heat and crude workmen barking while you want to sit and cry sifting through letters from the dead.

I'll miss this house. I'm looking at the hillside across the valley. My beautiful view. Of the school across the street where the guy who donated the land a hundred years ago said they could never develop the lot out front. So in front of me's a beautiful grassy hillside where coyotes live. Birds on the phone wires. The condo developments up there. No one ever gets naked in the window. Monterey Road to the right which is beautiful in the rain at night when cars come down with their streaking red and white headlights. Looking through the window by the front door from the couch, the gentle trickle of the rain and the headlights bleeding into the black street. It was a beautiful place to live.

My African fire cactus out back big as a barn. They cut it down now but I would pray looking at it every morning. God please help me to remember I'm just one of your creations. There it was, a cathedral sheltering the animals. The cement wall holding up the hillside where I stretched my legs and prayed to remember I was just God's creature like the squirrel- Eugene. He lives in the juniper tree out front. Part of his nest was a purple candy wrapper sticking out of the branches.

The yard out back where the tall weeds grew. The pink geraniums and yellow mustard. Where I grew my squash, my three sisters. The first time I had my own garden as a grown up. Where I grilled.

Taking hot baths.

I'll miss this house. Think of it like: someone else gets to live here now. The dog's distracting me. Honestly the last nights here have been the best. Since I've been taking care of the dog. When I wake up she wakes up and licks my face and curls up in my armpit. Not ready to get out of bed. I try to think about the good future in the new house. My back studio where I can work. The Japanese garden. And Susannah, Susannah, my beautiful girl. Lying with her on the couch every night watching Curb Your Enthusiasm and MDE. Not having to drive home on the 101. Waking up to the dog. Having a kid, having her as my wife- Susannah not the dog-,the future- getting sandwiches at the Jesus themed Armenian restaurant. But the future has this spike pit of getting through the moving.

I'll miss this house but someone else gets to live here now. I went through COVID in this house. I shot my bow and arrow in the yard. I learned to fight, I worked from home, I put out Finally Some Good News and Savage Spear. I had some success. I wrote some good stuff. I went through SLAA. I got together with Susannah. I had the best years of my life in this house. Looking out the front door years ago seeing a gray cat on the neighbor's roof. Wondering if he belonged to anybody. He's buried now between this yard and the neighbors. The bushes grew over his grave and I can't tell where it is anymore. Taking him to the vet when he couldn't pee. Capturing the stray cat and driving him frantic up the freeway to the emergency vet which wouldn't let me in during COVID. You had to ring a buzzer and someone came out triple masked while you held this squirming wild animal. They check to make sure you have enough on your credit card before they save him. Taking him home. Taking him inside, it was winter, they shaved his front legs and after he got done freaking out about being indoors he laid his paws under the radiator and savored the heat. And it was his house.

Your home is the people and animals you're with. The new place is the dog's place. This place is the dog's now too.

Almost seven years ago. I got kicked out my of old place in the cold rain. I saw this house on Craigslist. Up and up the long stairs to take the tour. It's decent, I thought. Good price. It has a bathtub. I could see myself living here.