At the gym this afternoon: some staff person had set the in-house stereo to a satellite radio station of '60's music. The result:: 1960's top-40 AM radio, complete with horrible d.j, horrible channel i.d.'s, and tunes that could drive unprepared gym clientele to desperate tears. Made me so happy to step back out into the gray, chilly (but AM-radio-less) afternoon.
Was asked recently if I've told the person who is buying the house about the household ghost. Answer: yep, that and much, much, much more. Have undertaken this transition with a policy of full disclosure, meaning supplying all information that I can about the house and its state, and answering all house/land-related questions to the best of my ability. (Which at times has resulted in a gross overabundance of information for the owner-to-be to absorb.)
Why, a sane person might wonder, have I undertaken this excessively free-flowing stream of information? Because I want to do the process of passing the house on to happen differently than it did with the previous owners. The p.o.'s: a 40ish couple in the middle of a messy separation, him no longer living in the house. It may be they had no energy or emotional resource to help me out with information/advice about the place, I can't say. What I experienced was serious attitude from her, including what seemed like purposeful choices that went beyond a simple lack of information, crossing over the line into acts that felt like deliberate fuck-you's, leaving me to face a few unpleasant surprises during the first few weeks in the house. (In addition to dealing with shoddy work done inside and outside.)
The new owner is a lovely person who is making a serious financial move in taking on this place –- whatever I can do to make it easier, happier, kinder, will make the experience feel better to me.
Meanwhile, I was struck by the question about the household ghost -- it was posed as if asking about a personality, a being. Which is not how I've experienced the phenomenon. It's always felt more like echoes of life lived in the house, like the wake of a boat passing through water, or the ripples from pebbles or raindrops on water. Gentle, not intrusive, mostly quiet -- briefly audible, then gone. Always benign. And about the last thing I expected to find in a raised ranch, built around '73.
[continued in next entry]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One more sign of spring: crocuses poking up through a lawn on a gray
early-April afternoon -- Montpelier, Vermont:
España, te echo de menos
rws 9:46 PM [+]
Comments:
Post a Comment