Valentines to my Life

Valentine's Day is a fine occasion to express your feelings to those you hold dear; verse is the traditional language of love. Here are the Valentines I'm sending this year.


Haiku for Indoor Plumbing

O, Indoor Plumbing,
What would I do without you?
Go pee in the snow.


Ode to Dick Wolf

Dick Wolf, you are so filthy rich,
You've made America your bitch.
I watch crime happen ever'y night,
Basking in the hi-def light.

I know exactly how it goes
From watching thousands of your shows.
But your predictability
Is what makes you so dear to me.

So go ahead and make some more
And put in lots of blood and gore.
You've hooked me through my prurience
Now you're my favorite decadence.


Shakespearean Sonnet for Arlington Trash Pick-Up

Each week they come and haul my trash away,
Whilst I am sleeping soundly in my bed,
And tidy dreams of order fill my head.
Ere I awake, my curb is sans decay.
Throughout the weary week, it piles high.
Unwanted items, having done their best
To satisfy our needs, now go to rest,
I do not weep or mourn to say goodbye.
E'en if I leave a sofa or a chair
Which filthy beast and child hath rip'd and rent,
On which no arse shall henceforth find content,
Yea, even such such a burden they will bear.
Recycl'ing, too, a wonder to behold,
Might mix and mingle freely, kind with kind,
If paper, plastic, glass and steel combined,
Yet all are taken, Township does not scold.
If such a wonder could to minds apply,
TV-show theme songs from my brain couldst fly.


Haiku for Two Sons

Messy, loud, unclean
Are you listening to me?!
Sleep; I kiss your cheek.


Homage a Fromage

You are so delicious, I eat you all day,
And I never get tired or sick.
You're there when I need you, when winter is grey,
Or when hubby is being a prick.

I eat you with dinner, I eat you with lunch,
Be you Cheddar or Muenster or Brie,
You'll never desert me, not even for brunch,
And especially not afternoon tea.

I eat you and eat you, though my bowels object
And who cares what my scale has to say?
Our passion's unending, our ardor unchecked,
Our true love will show me the whey.


Facebook Limerick

There once was a stay-at-home mom,
Whose brain did refuse to be calm,
Until facebook she found,
And her psyche unwound--
Now she thinks she's the queen of the prom.


Prayer to Normal

O Normal!
Keep me this day safe in thy boring arms!
Deliver unto me a host of petty concerns;
Subject me to untold minor irritations!
For if I lamented too grievously thy burden,
And thou deserted me in wrath and spite,
How woefully should I suffer for thy loss!
Well I remember when last thou went away,
And Fate and Worry came to take thy place;
As now they torment millions, who long for thee.
Grant me, then, your rashes and appointments,
Your messes and carpools, your burdensome school projects,
Your debts to pay, your broken fixtures, your foul weather!
And I shall offer gratitude, and only whine a little.



Happy Valentine's Day, Blog! Now, your turn: leave a haiku for a loved one/thing in my comment section. Major extra credit for longer poetic forms!

Winter People

I've mentioned that I'm not in favor of winter in New England. Tragically, it's a problem I seem to be stuck with, so it's become a project of mine to study how other people manage it. I've identified 7 distinct psychological profiles, and laid them out here in a friendly, even cheezy, facebook-quiz-result format. I've tried them all (especially 3 and 5) and can't say any of them really work for me. Which one are you?

1. The Scandinavian

Your strategy is to embrace winter by wholesomely and publicly not minding/liking/LOVING! the cold and snow, participating in lots of outdoor winter sports and whatnot, simply dressing correctly for the weather, and telling other people how they could--and really should--enjoy winter as much as you, if they could just cultivate an upbeat attitude and acquire proper footwear. When the subject comes up, you are likely to mention that you grew up in a northern climate, or that your ancestors did, as if that itself provided some kind of immunity to winter misery, though the statistics about alchoholism and suicide in northern Europe alone (see type 4) should be enough to shut you up. All the other types listed here hate you. In fact, why are you even reading this? Don't you have an Ididerod to train for or something?

Pros: happiness, health, superiority
Cons: only other Scandinavians can stand you

2. The Philosopher/Poet/Artsy Type

You are probably somebody's Dad. You can, and do, quote Robert Frost and Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale at length. You take beautiful photographs of ice-encrusted trees. You spend the long winter hours re-reading Les Miserables, and reflecting about and expounding on the building of character. By March, you are usually more depressed than the rest of us.

Pros: sounds great

Cons: doesn't work

3. The Patient

You think of winter as a disease that can be treated with a variety of remedies--vitamin D, fish oil, light therapy, antidepressants, psychotherapy, smelling salts, aromatherapy, hypnotherapy, etc. You suffer deeply, mention your diagnosis often (Seasonal Affective Disorder, Hypersensitivity, Vapors, Excessive Beauty of the Soul), and complain regularly, as if everyone around you weren't living in the exact same climate as you.

Pros: actually might work--placebo therapy is often effective
Cons: danger of slipping into type 4 when remedies don't work

4. The Alcoholic

You are a traditionalist. Your Daddy, and your Daddy's Daddy before him--all the way back to your Great Grandaddy Bjorgen Flergnoggen--all dealt with winter (and probably most other situations) using the time honored tradition of Drinking Yourself into Oblivion. Nothing warms the soul in a January cold snap like a hot rum toddy, or a bottle of vodka, or two, topped off with a steaming hot percocet.

Pros: dulls the pain
Cons: cons? what cons? there are no cons--you could quit any time you wanted to!

5. The Groundhog

You crank the heat up, watch lots of tv, takes lots of naps, and consume lots of hot cocoa and toasted cheese, and cookies, and bread, and other kinds of cheese, and other kinds of chocolate. You wear stretchy clothes, 2 or 3 layers, and extra socks. You get really good at some lame computer game. You do not answer the phone, you do not go out at night, or during the day, unless you must. You may have gained a few pounds.

Warning: Do not attempt this strategy with children in the house.

Pros: cozy, combines well with type 4

Cons: high heating bill; by spring your friends have forgotten you.

6. The Migrator

Each winter you go somewhere warm, stock up on sunshine and the will to live, take pictures of yourself in a bikini on a beach somewhere, sipping a drink out of a coconut, and put them on facebook so we can share your joy as we shovel and scrape. You absolutely must come home with a tan, whether or not you like to tan at any other time of year. You tend to have more money than me.

Note: This only counts as a strategy for "dealing" with winter if you go away for less than a month of the winter--more than that is actually just "not dealing".

Pros: a really nice week or two

Cons: having a stark comparison may exacerbate the effects of winter when you return

7. The Equal Opportunity Grouch

Winter doesn't bother you any more than every other damn thing in your pain-in-the-ass life. You remember that in the spring, there's all that mud, and in the summer you'll be uncomfortably hot and have all that yard work to do, etc. You complain, but with a sense of resignation that would seem more philosophical if you ever enjoyed anything, at all, ever.

Pros: acceptance

Cons: never-ending misery

Resolved: From now on, this blog is going to suck.

I'm not ideally suited to blogging. I'm inherently self-conscious, long-winded, perfectionistic, and slow. I'm also pathetically susceptible to others' opinions of me. My emotional involvement with my blog--which a few of my "readers" (i.e., best friends) recently noticed I had abandoned--had become more intense than a 13-year-old's crush on Simon Lebon, or, you know, whoever those crazy kids are into these days.

Previously, I would spend a week writing something far too long for a blog post, forcing my husband to read it six times and reassure me it was okay. I would sit at the computer, meditating on that orange "PUBLISH POST" button as if it were the proverbial Red Button. Finally, I would take a deep breath, press the button and hop up and pace around the room. Then I would read it over in published blog form, to make sure there were no errors I'd missed. Then I would unpublish it, because there would be. This could go on for an hour, or three. For the next few days I would compulsively check for comments every ten minutes, and each time I got one, it would be like I'd won the Nobel Frikkin Prize. My metabolism was heightened, I flushed, I fidgeted. When all 7 people had read it, and the comments tapered off, I would slide into a funk.

I fully realize how lame this is. Or was. I know what a blog is, or is supposed to be. I understand that everyone who reads it is somebody I know, who will either enjoy it and say something nice, or politely keep their mouths shut. I really do get it, that nobody cares, and it doesn't matter. We can examine the appalling lack of excitement and purpose in my life some other time, or not.

The thing is, in spite all of the emotional upheaval it caused me, I think blogging was good for me, because it gave me something to do (I know, you're thinking maybe if I had, like, two things to do, it wouldn't seem so important... um, shut up). Anyway. I really want to continue blogging. I just, seriously, can't fuss so much about whether it's any good.

So, fair warning: from now on, this blog will disappoint you. I will long-windedly blather about stuff that you don't care about, and make jokes that aren't as funny as I seem to think they are. I will be overly serious sometimes, and say stuff you disagree with. I'll probably even insult you, and your mother, and her stupid little dog. You are going to HATE this blog from now on. You probably won't even read it at all.

Whatever. Like I care.

Happy Hoffstrom Holidays!!

Woof! And Grrrrreetings, Frrrrriends of the Hoffstrrrrrrom Family!!

It's me again, Shmoopsie, the dog the Hoffstroms have always wanted, except for that old meanie Mister Sean, who won't let them get me. I am an adorable sad and wonwey puppy at the cold and smelly pound, waiting for a kind family with two adorable little boys and two terrrific cats, and three cute gerbils, and two fantastic iguanas, and one spunky canary to take me home and love me and take care of me, before they take me away forever to the scary back room. But old grouchy-pants Mister Sean thinks I would be too "inconvenient". *sad whimper*



Anyways, another year has passed, and I am here again to wish you a verrrrry Merrrrry Chrrrrristmas, and a Grrrrrreat Hannukah, and a Rrrrrrreally Nice Kwanza, and a Superrrrrr Solistice! AND, to bring you your yearly update on that terrrrrrific family, the Hoffstrrrroms! It's been a super busy and productive and all around grrrreat year for the Hoffstroms, so let's get rrrright to it!! Woof!

Theo is 6 1/2 now, and in the first grade, but wow, is he advanced!! Every week, his creative little mind comes up with something new to amaze us! Why, just last month, he made his own tattoo gun from a ball-point pen, a guitar string, and a car battery (we wondered for a week where the heck that thing had gone!), and gave himself the most marvelous tattoo of a decapitated squirrel! The detail was so lifelike, you'd think he had a real one to look at! His fabulous parole officer Theresa (thanks, Theresa, hope you're back on two feet again soon!! XOXO!) said he is doing grrreat, and promised that if he could go another 3 to 6 months without stealing from the neighbors, or selling any more "drugs" to the neighborhood kiddies, he could take off that pesky old ankle bracelet! Fingers--I mean paws!--crossed!

Now for Charlie, that Special Little Guy. He is 11 now, and boy can he drool! He loves his new "special guy" run in the back yard--no more getting tangled up in that old leash! And we have even been letting him in the house on those extra-chilly December nights--who could resist that sad, drool-y face, smooshed up and frozen against the glass on the back door? Last week, he put some new stickers on his helmet, with only a little help when a couple got stuck on his eyebrows. Golly, did we laugh--with him, of course!

Amy is back from rehab again, and celebrating 47 days clean-tastic and sober-ific--for the third time this year! She's been busily getting the house ready for the holidays, whenever she gets out of bed every few days: she shoveled a nice clear path through the newspapers and fast-food wrappers, and she whipped up a batch (or three!) of her super-secret Holiday Eggnog Punch recipe! Lemme tell ya, it must be full of the true Spirit of X-Mas, because for a non-alchoholic beverage, that stuff sure gets us all feeling mighty festive!

And last but not least, my fantabulous old arch nemesis, Sean! Wowie-zowie, his life has been as exciting as a ride on Santa's crazy old sleigh! First of all, his 2nd quarterly report tied for third best in his subdivision--but the Hoffstroms all agreed, it really deserved second! Sean's also been keeping his fellow engineers entertained with a steady stream of old Family Circus cartoons on his half of the cubicle wall--even some that poked gentle fun at authority figures!, though he had to take those down. Oh, he's still a little forgetful and accident-prone: last September, the silly old kook forgot to turn off the car in the garage while he was listening to Joy Division on the radio, and a few months before that, he pretty seriously nicked himself while shaving his wrists in the bathtub. But we know what that old grumpykins needs--lots of togetherness and special times with his wacky-but-super-terrific family!

Well, that's about all the news for the Hoffstrrrroms! Hope your year was as fun-filled and interrrresting as theirs was, though it probably wasn't! Maybe next year, the Hoffstroms will actually adopt me, and I can greet you at the front door in person--maybe even pee on your shoe--just kidding! Woof! Here's hoping!!


Wuv,

Shmoopsie

The Dark Side

As a young woman, I spent 7 glorious years in California's Bay Area. Not in foggy, windy San Francisco, but in sunny, blithe Palo Alto, where 10 months of the year are a cloudless 75 degrees. The "winter" season, when it was chillier, and it rained more than usual, was also the season of green--grass grew on the hills, the air was moist and fragrant; often, after a rain, the sun came out and created spectacular double rainbows. I came to think of myself as a normal, energetic, happy person.

In 2001, we moved back east, to be nearer our families. We lived in Providence, Rhode Island, a city with many fine qualities, but a decidedly gritty texture compared to California. I hadn't lived though a real winter in 7 years, and I hadn't lived in a coastal climate for even longer--I had forgotten about the relentless cloud cover of the New England seacoast, having left it behind in Maine when I went off to college.

I found myself stuck indoors in an unfamiliar city with an energetic three-year-old, no friends, no sunshine, and no entertainment. I hadn't watched television for 7 years. Now suddenly I felt that I needed something to fill the dark hours, and the windswept hole that had appeared in my soul. I told my husband it was either cable tv, or crack. I've slogged through 8 New England winters since, with the help of, at various times, cable tv, caffeine, video games, antidepressants, carbohydrates, whining, light boxes, alcohol (the old European standby), wool socks, and this New Yorker cover, taped to my kitchen cabinet:

Still, I find the dark days bleak and empty--I eat, I isolate myself, I crave only warmth, comfort, solitude, and sleep.

Either I have Seasonal Affective Disorder, or everybody does, and there is really no such thing. I lean toward the latter. Wikipedia says:

In many species, activity is diminished during the winter months in response to the reduction in available food and the difficulties of surviving in cold weather. Hibernation is an extreme example, but even species that do not hibernate often exhibit changes in behavior during the winter. It has been argued that SAD is an evolved adaptation in humans that is a variant or remnant of a hibernation response in some remote ancestor.... If these interpretations are correct, SAD would not be a dysfunction or disorder as most psychiatrists assume, but rather a normal and expected response to seasonal changes.

If this is the correct explanation, my particular disorder is more correctly characterized by a tendency to whine a lot more than everybody else while in the exact same situation. In fact, I was going to save this subject for a blog post later in the season, only because I often have very little else to say during the winter months. As it turns out, that has already happened.

My older son has recently become interested in Greek myths. Yesterday, I had him read me the story of Persephone, one of my favorites as a kid. You remember it: Hades, in a typical dickhead Greek God move, kidnaps the lovely young Persephone, Demeter's daughter, and takes her down the the underworld to be his bride. Demeter searches everywhere for her daughter, but can't find her. In her grief, she neglects her usual job of making the earth warm and green and fertile. Mortals are miserable, and beginning to starve, so Zeus allows a deal to be made, wherein Persephone can return to earth most of the year, but has to return to the underworld four months out of each year--one month for each pomegranate seed she ate, in the worst pre-nuptial loophole ever. This is why the winter comes every year: spring is born with Persephone's return to her mother.

I love this story because I take winter so personally, it makes sense to me to personify it. When I walk out the door and the cold wind slaps me, and a big cold blob of ice slides down the back of my neck, it feels like an assault, as if the earth is spiting me in particular. I resent the hell out of the endless struggle with the snow and cold--the bundling and unbundling, the insulating of window and door cracks, the shoveling, the scraping, the salting, just in order to move about one tiny corner of the world without freezing, falling down, or having the car get stuck.

And Persephone's listless sulk in the colorless, lifeless underworld is the perfect description of life in Boston in the winter months: you might as well be describing the parking lot of the Dunkin Donuts on Mass Ave. in February: cold, gray, and barren, populated only by wandering, dejected, hopeless souls in workboots and checkered jackets. People grow pale and wan, they do not smile, or chat.

See? Same.

As I said, I feel all this very personally, and cast about for someone to blame. Not Demeter, she is too sympathetic, plus she is pretend. Nope, you know who we actually have to blame for this mess? The goddamn Pilgrims, that's who.

Only the Puritan Pilgrims, with their bleak view of life as penance and suffering, could have looked around the bleak Plymouth landscape, and said to each other: "Awesome! What a terrible climate! This place will force us to be miserable, as God wants us to be! God will test and mock and punish us for months longer here than in Virginia, where we were actually headed! Let's stay! Our ancestors will be so grateful to us, for they too can live half the year in misery and pain"! Yes, only the grim, ascetic, cowering, intolerant, fanatical, buckle-shoed, witch-hunting, masochistic, joy-averse, turkey-eating PILGRIMS would decide to settle in such an inhospitable climate.

Don't try and defend them--religious freedom, persecution, blah, blah, blah. They didn't really want religious freedom, they just wanted to go somewhere where THEY could be the persecutors. I promise you, the more you find out about the pilgrims, the less there is to like. These are some of my ancestors, and I can't stand the uptight sons of bitches.

This is traditionally the point in my rambling where I should soften the message, offer a glimmer of positivity or hope or perspective--"But it's not all bad...we still have the warm love in our hearts", something like that. But I've got nothing. The days are dark and cold, and will stay that way for many months. I have a firm policy of No Hoping 'Til May, having been burned by too many late April snowstorms. If before then there happens to be a thaw, I will certainly enjoy it, bask in the sun and warmth, even maybe plant some seedlings indoors, but I won't be fooled. Winter is long, colorless, and brutal in New England.

Thanks a lot, Pilgrims.

Today Was the First Day of the Rest of My Week

Today I decided to follow the advice of so many facebook friends that I kind of knew in junior high, cult leaders, tattoos, and writers of inspirational words, and live this day as if it were my last, in order to truly appreciate the wonder of the world, and the miracle of the love of the people that surround me, or, you know, something along those lines.

Well, let me just tell you right now--it’s harder than you think!

First of all, I think statistically speaking, and with any luck, I’ll spend my last day in a hospital bed, hooked to an IV that will dispense large quantities of my opiate of choice. In fact, when you think about it, those opiates would probably contribute a lot to the project of appreciating life and love and beauty and stuff. But I guessed it would be pretty hard to set up that scenario, even though I’m friends with this one really nice nurse. Anyway, it would definitely be really expensive.

So I considered some less likely last-day scenarios. My favorite hypothetical death has always been getting hit from behind by a Mack truck that I never see coming, and killed instantly. Perhaps I could posit this as the end of my last day. But no: the whole appeal of that death is that it’s a complete surprise, just God flipping the off-switch. There’s no agonizing, no putting your affairs in order, no pondering the possibility of an afterlife, no finally working up the courage to tell your 7^th grade crush that you still love him, and still cherish that collection of his used tissues and chewed gum you collected all those years ago in a shoebox under your bed. You’re just going about your business as usual, returning the videos, buying some health and beauty products, or maybe even stooping to pick up a penny, thinking it’s your lucky day, and then—whammo!—you’re not, the end. But too bad: not only is this happy scenario pretty unlikely—only .005% of pedestrians are killed by large trucks, and a good 78% of those hear it coming, as those suckers are pretty loud—not only that, but it pretty much defeats the whole purpose of this experiment, which presumes your awareness of your imminent demise, otherwise, what would be the point?

On the other hand, I know from experience that cancer—and probably most other long, lingering diseases—offer far too much wiggle-room to really lend themselves to self-discovery, deep human bonding, or mystic appreciation. You never know for a fact which exact day is going to be the last one, or maybe you can even get out of the dying part altogether, so you can put off awkward, soul-baring conversations, long, buggy walks in the woods, and jumping off of really high stuff, indefinitely. In my experience, cancer actually turns out to be the perfect excuse to gorge yourself on junk food in front of the TV, and catch up on celebrity gossip.

Now, I’m sure there’s some variation in this, but I think most people who know they’re about to die probably just totally freak out. They cry, they scream, they hyperventilate, they drink. If they have a couple of hours or days to spare, they might spend some time freaking out alongside their loved-ones—crying, screaming, hyperventilating, and/or drinking together. But I don’t think this kind of full-on freak-out—alone, or en masse--is the kind of true appreciation of life and wonder that my former-junior-high-acquaintances and their tattoo artists have in mind, although it probably technically should qualify.

After a lot of consideration, during which I took a break to check e-mail, and watch a pretty funny YouTube video a friend had posted of a singing banana, and then a couple of others that were linked to that one, I decided to leave aside the question of exactly how I was going to end my “last” day, and get around to seizing it. I told the kids that as soon as their dad got up, and we all finished breakfast and cleaned up the kitchen, and got showered and dressed, we were going to spend some time truly appreciating life and each other, and the things that truly matter to us most in the end. “In a minute, Mom”, droned the Big One, intent on his project of making a miniature Space Needle out of small chewed-up pieces of paper. The Little One growled at me and bared his teeth, so I decided not to push the issue, having given them fair warning.

When my husband got up, I told him my plan. “So I was thinking maybe today we could do that thing where we live as if it were our last day on earth.”

He was amenable. “OK, that sounds cool.”

“Cool. OK.” I waited for him to check his e-mail. “So do you want to have some people over?”

“Sure, who?”

“Well, we could ask the Brookses, but I think they’re out of town. Maybe the Franks? I don’t know, it’s kinda last minute. And the house is a wreck, we’d have to clean.”

“You wanna drive out to the beach?”

“It’s getting kinda late for that—we wouldn’t get there til about 2, and the traffic might be bad.”

“Do you want to go into the city?”

“What would we do there?”

“I don’t know, just walk around?”

“The kids hate that.”

“Damn kids.”

At this point, I remembered that funny video that I wanted to show him, which reminded him of one, and we ended up spending about an hour watching stuff on YouTube.

Well, you can see how it went. At about 4 in the afternoon, we decided to go for a walk around the neighborhood with the kids, which was pretty nice until the Little One fell down and the Big One got mad because we still wouldn’t let him have a tv in his room: “But Mo-o-om, if it was actually your last day on earth, you’d definitely let me watch tv in my room!”

By the time we got home we were hungry and cranky. We couldn’t decide what to make for dinner, so we ordered pizza and watched an Adam Sandler movie that we thought would be a good family movie, but turned out to be too dirty for the Big One, too boring for the Little One, and too stupid for us.

After the kids went to bed, I felt kinda bad, because if it was really my last day to live, probably I could have done a better job of appreciating everything, or at least finding something to do. My husband and I agreed that next weekend…no wait, it will have to be the weekend after that, because we’re visiting my sister-in-law next weekend…so the weekend after next, we’re definitely going to PLAN an awesome last day, get up early—like, 9:30 at the latest—and appreciate the heck out of it all.

Thanksgiving

On Thursday we drove to Maine for Thanksgiving dinner at my parent's house. It's a familiar drive. The familiar drive, in fact--the drive that the car practically does on its own. Up dreary I-95, through the two tolls only 17 miles apart (my dad calls the New Hampshire turnpike "the most expensive 17 miles in the country", though I'm sure he hasn't backed this up with research), over the bridge--

"We're in Maine"!

--off the turnpike at the Wells exit. Past the Wells House of Pizza and Roast Beef, past the Maine Diner, where my father, as a teenager newly without a mom, ate most of his meals, cooked by Louis and delivered by Millie, who threw all the silverware down in a bunch on the table with a cheerfully aggressive clatter. Down the long, straight, wooded stretch of Route 9, where my son, at two years old, once astutely observed, "There sure is a lot of sticks in Maine".



And then--vista!


Just past the turn to Parson's beach, the road crosses a tiny bridge at the mouth of the Mousam river. Misty, pungent marsh, river bordered by woods, and far off to the right, a glimpse of ocean--all understated, polite New England beauty; part scenery, part pathos. The beauty of the scene is half in its familiarity, and the relief of homecoming it signals--the long drive is over; we are almost home.

This was our last Thankgiving in the house where I grew up. After living there for 30 years, my parents have sold it, and bought a new house in Kennebunk, not very far away. Their new place is beautiful, conveniently situated, and full of possibilities. I'm ok with the move, I really am. I'm writing this not to scold them for moving, but to remember, and give thanks: for the old house and its comforts; for the town to which I feel deeply connected; and for my parents, who have, by example, taught me the meaning and importance of home.

Kennebunkport is a famous town--it was a summering place for the New England upper-crust back in the 1800's, long before the Bushes arrived. The old shingle-style summer "cottages" they built, bigger and grander than most people's year-round houses, are at once beautiful and infuriating to us locals of humbler origins. When I tell people I grew up in Kennebunkport, I feel I need to quickly qualify our position there: we are not fancy River Club summer people, but true locals: my father, the first in his family to go to college, taught elementary school there, his father--among other things--built boats and pulled lobster traps, his father's father was the local blacksmith, and so on, back through 5 generations to the first immigrant Hoff, a sailor about whom we know very little, except the old family legend that he jumped ship after killing a shipmate with a belaying pin.

It's a small village, and almost as soon as we moved there from Kennebunk, when I was 10, I was given the freedom to roam around the town and the ocean. Every so often, I like to bore my husband as we walk around by telling him how many of the houses in town I have been inside, and why--friend's houses, relative's houses, houses on my paper route, houses I babysat in, houses I cleaned as a summer job. There are a lot of them, enough to make my husband beg me to stop before I'm nearly finished.

I can also bore him with family landmarks. At the end of our street is a small stone grotto built by my great uncle Benjamin, who was a stone mason.
Down that same road, near the river, there's a condominium in the spot where my great-grandfather's blacksmith shop once stood. The antique fire engine he built is still maintained by the fire department and trotted out every few years for the Memorial Day parade, "C. Hoff" painted in gold on the side. Across the river are shops where my grandfather's boatyard used to be. My father remembers, as a boy, helping his other grandfather, an electrician, to rewire the house in which they now live.

My parent's house sits on a road that winds alongside a small tidal creek. The house itself was probably nothing special when it was built in 1911--a solid, middle-sized house, for solid, middle-income people. It has a narrow, well-loved porch, front and side. In front is a tall ash tree, where my father built a tiny treehouse, a perch, really, for my sister when she was little. When my own children were small, my parents hung a swing from a long rope on one of its branches. In the fall, my dad would rake a huge pile of leaves right in front of the swing, and let the kids go crashing through the pile. The house is cozy, welcoming, sufficient. It's almost impossible to see it as it is, rather, I see the house as it was, and myself in it, as I was.

This is the kitchen where my father rustled around before dawn every morning for 4 years, to make me breakfast before high school. This is where my mother nursed me through bronchitises and mono, and my sister and I created hilarious-only-to-us poems and photo essays. This is the house where I brought my husband 18 years ago, to hasten the job of explaining my previous life to him. Here, I dressed for my wedding, and brought my newborn sons to meet the family. Here we have eaten a hundred big family dinners-- the recipes, and smells, and progression of the day always the same, the cast of characters always slightly different, children growing up, adults growing older.

As a young woman, I was transient, as young people often are now. I've lived in 15 different apartments and houses since I left for college in 1986. My older son moved six times in his first six years of life. The house in Kennebunkport, with my parents in it, was the constant through all those moves, the anchor that allowed me the luxury of drifting. When I think of myself in all of those different places, it's nearly impossible to see my life and self as a single, linear story, unfractured. With each invigorating, depleting move, I gained something, and shed something of myself. But I had a lingering sense that my original self was still stored away in that house, the street, the town. When I carry the last box of my things that are stored there to my own house, maybe that will be my final step into adulthood, after an absurdly protracted and spoiled adolescence.

On Friday afternoon, as we were getting ready to leave, I told my son he might want to go through the house and take some pictures, as it was likely to be the last time he would be there, at least with everything in its place. He insisted he would remember it all perfectly, that it was unnecessary to take pictures. I still made him photograph the fold-down ironing board in the kitchen, and the china cabinet I painted one summer, with its familiar bric-a-brac.


He took some pictures on his own, too, that I hope he will find in 10 or 40 years, and be glad to have. When it was time to go, we said goodbye quickly, got into the dark car, and, like good New Englanders, cried only when we were pretty sure nobody could see.

For all my sentimentality, I realize that this is a relatively small loss, and a common one. None of us is sick, destitute, or miserable. My parents, the core of that house's importance, are fine--wonderful even!--rejuvenated by this change, at a time in their lives they'd almost given up on big new adventures. I have roots in Kennebunk, too--it's where I was born, where I went to high school, and where my mother grew up--I can easily bore my husband with stories about this new old place. And I really am a grown-up now, with a home of my own, and some shallow, delicate roots, but roots nonetheless, starting to grow in my new place. I'll be fine.

And I'll remember.

Thanks, house.