If I Lived

If I lived in the house across the street the sun would come up over my breakfast room. There would be a gentle light inviting morning into the bedroom, just enough to overcome any trace of seasonal affective disorder, but the breakfast room would be bright and welcoming, and I would love getting out of bed to make coffee, just so that I could sit in the breakfast room and drink it while I read the morning news, surrounded by the rainbows created by crystal prisms that I’d hang in the windows. The light would be perfect for growing herbs just outside the window, and I would contemplate which of them would scent the room later in the day, perhaps the thyme infusing flavor into a roasting chicken, perhaps the Thai basil brightening a sizzling wok of glass noodles. With the right start in the day, I could move mountains; we would never run out of pesto and our April 15 would come and go without anxiety, our taxes having long since been filed.

If I lived in the house around the corner, the one with the rock garden and fountain in the shaded back yard, I would sit in that yard in a comfy chair with my laptop and a book by my side, inspired by the xeriscape I’d create, calmed by the sound of water, enchanted by the koi in the pond I’d build. I would write, and read, and occasionally re-fill my iced tea, freshen it with mint that I’d pinch from my plants in the rock garden, keeping them full and bushy, never letting them go to seed. There would always be fresh flowers indoors, artfully arranged in just the right vase, be it exquisite or funky depending on the flower inside, the season, the mood. Music would fill the house, and I’d easily access just the right tunes from my iPod, or perhaps Pandora.

If I lived in the house down the street, the small one-story, I’d clean out all my closets and finally get organized. I’d have nothing that I didn’t really use, use nothing that I didn’t really need. I’d finally give up the Kitchen Aid mixer, because I prefer mixing by hand anyway, and all those spare towels? They’d be given to Goodwill and put to use by people who really need them. I’d appreciate the things I have, and take better care of them. I would finally hem the skirt that’s too long, polish my shoes and repair the soles, fix the earring that broke, re-upholster the chair that the cats ruined. I would always know where I’d put the cheese grater, which would double as a lemon zester, because I’d have eliminated anything redundant.

If I lived in that downtown condo I’d never be lonely, because I’d be up in the morning using the shared gym facilities while getting to know my interesting neighbors, with whom I’d hang out in the evenings on the rooftop terrace while we shared drinks and tapas and watched the sunset. I’d take walks down the river and people watch, chat with the locals walking their dogs. I’d get to know the old woman down the street, the tiny one with the white hair whose city trash cans in her front yard are as large as she is. She’d tell me the stories of the neighborhood before it became condos, and I’d feel a part of the revitalized community.

If I lived in that house downtown, it would always be clean. Dust wouldn’t settle in that beautiful stairwell, drips would not stain those gorgeous floors. The screened in porch would always be fresh and cool in the summer, and I wouldn’t leave it cluttered and strewn with shoes and the Sunday paper or piles of paperwork and receipts. Instead, I would learn to keep plants alive and be surrounded by lush, healthy flowers and exotic plants – maybe a bonsai. Toothpaste spatters would never mar the bathroom mirrors, and I’d teach the cats not to shed indoors. I would never leave laundry draped over the dining room chairs, and would always have freshly ironed linen napkins. I would write my book in the study overlooking the street corner, and illustrate it with the photographs I’d collected and preserved over the years. I would never step on crumbs in the kitchen, even though there would always be freshly baked bread. Kitchen knives would always be sharp; light bulbs immediately replaced. The small pantry would be ever stocked with delicious foods, easily prepared into a creative snack or light meal.

Here’s the rub. I live in this house. The sun comes up over the study, damn sun in my eyes. In this house, the breakfast room is dark, and looks out over a parched back yard, where I’ve killed herbs of all variety, leaving me to overpay for them at the grocery store, and then forget they’re there until I eventually toss them. I do own a crystal prism, and it sits on the sill of the bathroom window where I meant to hang it years ago, but never bothered to get the right hook. Sometimes it falls off the sill into the tub and makes a god awful noise that scares the hell out of me. In this house I have a comfy chair in the bedroom which is usually covered with dirty clothes or a stack of linen napkins that I might get around to ironing someday. In the meantime, they’re covered in cat hair, because in this house live endless cats, one of whom is diabetic and has started to pee inside. In this house I drive to the mailbox; when I do walk I keep my head down, lest I run into a neighbor who might want to complain about socialism, or ask me how my son is doing. Bitch. She’s referring to my teenaged daughter's former boyfriend, who practically lived here one summer. In this house I have a Kitchen Aid Mixer, but the last time I wanted to use it I couldn’t find the right attachment, so I left it where it was collecting dust. I found the attachment later, next to the lemon zester. In this house my favorite snack is a handful of chocolate chips thrown into a jar of peanut butter and picked out with a knife, washed down with a Coke Zero, if I have one. In this house, there is an abandoned yellow plastic hummingbird feeder hanging from a backyard tree limb. It practically screams “I tried, I really tried”. In this house, I look at the calendar and see that it’s April 15. Oh well.

Still, it’s this house that I come home to. It’s this kitchen I mess up feeding and entertaining my family; this breakfast room where I sing the junior birdman song with my daughter; this bathroom where I take bubble baths; this living room where I doze off reading; this study where the cats keep me company; this dining room where I laugh with friends; this yard where I get my hands dirty planting the occasional flower; this bedroom where I dream and where my dreams come true. It’s in this house, this home, that I live.