There is a house under construction in our neighborhood. It does not seem very remarkable from the outside. It looks nice and will make a lovely place for some family; clean, contemporary and new.
My parents had the house I grew up in, built. Some of my earliest memories are of driving to the site, walking around the rising structure and painting the last triangle of wall on the northern side of my bedroom, a gentle yellow. Ours was the last house on the street when we moved in, except for the neighbors all the way at the end of the cul-de-sac, so far down that we could neither see, nor hear, them.
The street filled in with new houses as I grew up. Then a new street behind ours emerged and was also developed, one house at a time, each a bit different according to the year it was constructed. I spent my childhood in construction sites. We played Star Trek, ( I was always Bones or Scotty) Batman (I was always Robin since I had black bloomers from school, which looked just like Robin's) It was wonderful.
One neighbor let all the kids on the street dig his basement, he was actually building his house himself. We had a blast that summer, until Ronny hit his brother with a pick by mistake. They were fine, but a back-hoe was there the next day and school started a couple of weeks later.
During our later, pre-teen and teen years, my neighbors and I would run all over these sites. We climbed ladders and spanned floors of 2x4s. We smoked in basements and on rooftops, we talked about anything and everything. We grew up.
When the footings were laid in some of the houses, after the workmen had left for the day, we wrote our initials in the damp concrete, leaving our mark for posterity. One of my friends died in the eighties; but his name remains in the neighborhood, in the footings.
I loved spending time in the bones of a house. It is really the mere suggestion of a house, full of possibilities without the suffocating separation of walls. Air flows freely and bits of sky hide in the rafters. At night the animals creep through, as we had earlier in the day. They seek bits of food or shelter and they hunt; they live.
I see the lines of the houses like the lines of ancient ruins, but rather than disrepair, destruction and a sorrowful past, there is wonder of the future, of our capacity to provide such housing and at the knowledge and skill of those who build. I do not know how to build a house: I admire that very much.
I wish I could live in a half built structure, the warm wood and the lines remind me of the awe of the Acropolis. The unfinished quality lets my mind expand, to take any space to a different completion in my mind, each day. It smells of fresh wood fiber and has the warm glow of pine and late afternoon.
In an unfinished house I can still hear the warm, young voices of the past on a pleasant summer evening, engaged in living, breathing conversation, side by side, in sawdust and friendship.
