Hello!
How's it going?
I had the feeling
about a for-sale house in Angeleno Heights. I’ve had it before...it is a real
thing that took hold of me in Denver 18 years ago with a great old space called
a “territorial style” by the Coloradoans. In that place I felt watched but
protected because I was still growing up and needed a talisman the size of a large rambling house. And also it was haunted. The haunters just
seemed to like us although the dog got unnerved in the middle of her first floor naps. But I knew I had
to have it instantly and it changed my life, making that decision and moving in. And I was walking through this
other place yesterday and thinking, this is nuts, I really have to live here, I
may never leave, and I saw all its beauty and glory and also the rotting porch
and weird mail slot that went right through with no barrier, the attic stairs
that are open to a bedroom and wildly uneven, and 100 years of layered paint and I
didn't care, I had to have it. Wandered around in a trance not in the
prescribed way, fighting the other circling potential buyers, like you do when you meet an actual person you love, you don't do the right things at all, which is
so clear because you have efficiently implanted these new rules for correct behavior. And I had
blue gum on my shoe from the inside of my car, and I have no idea who left it there,
not me, which made me think that I’d have to be super careful not to get any on
the floor of my special new house.
The pocket doors and the open unscreened windows. Love. Then I quite imperfectly walked into this vision and saw
the bay window featured in the technicolor dream I had right after I met you although there wasn't a wicker thing in the dream [oh wait, you probably don't remember! remind me never to tell you] but something else entirely. The straight up ballsy emptiness, the superhigh
ceilings, the quality and integrity of the space, the fireplace, the pantry,
the square metal knobs that are attached in the most unwiggly way to the greasy gorgeous wood
cabinets. Trees and vines. If I were a ghost I’d haunt the
hell out of that place. Then the realtor asked what we thought.
And I said the thing never ever to say to a realtor: [long pause] "I think I love
it" and she said there are multiple offers but they’d consider another if
it was quick. She had glossy black hair and a sweet face like a sister from another lifetime. I wondered why this wasn't mentioned on the way in to the open house...and yes, it does matter...my desire would have been parametered all normal and nice and I'd be writing you about something else, who knows what. I don’t really want to explain it here but
there won’t be a serious backup offer from me in 12 hours.
I forgot about this feeling of lightning bolt love for a building. So I stumbled
out like a sad Peanuts character as a joke but it was actually real. I'm spoiled, I don't feel heartbreak very often or there aren't things I want this much and in this way. I felt this foreign thing turning softly but alive a little lower than my heart. The same place that feels pressure when you can't get your breath from nerves. But a little lower. And I had to face this other thing: a fortune cookie paper in Latin I got in Italy ten years ago that said, "Nulla Tenaci est via invia"
for the tenacious no road is impassable
which I've deviated from or have finally run up against another type of challenge. The only
thing that helped was chicken mole in Boyle Heights. And Led Zeppelin. And a
nap. A visit from a friend. The total recall that I'm really lucky and I've still got those talismans following me around every day, I can feel them. They are here right now.
Hope you are well,
R
