After Dust Settles

By: Victoria G. Smith

 

I sit before my kitchen table, sipping
morning coffee as walls shake and floor
trembles, jackhammers at work already.
Dust covers everything—each surface,
nook, and cranny—filling nostrils,
filming beverage. I am breathing,
drinking this old house: my home
that was home to others before me—
ingesting the shadows of their lives?
I examine my skin, note the throb
on my wrist, feeling for sensation
of past lives swimming inside me.
This house is going to be the death
of me. The life of me. The mark of me.
I feel I have forever been chasing
a sense of being from a sense of place
buried deep inside me—a forgotten
memory that’s still etched in the folds
of my brain: a scar from some fight
with Fate that won’t fade? How can one
explain that brick, stone, and wood speak
—whispering secret designs of rebirth?
This house is renovating me as much
as I am it: we are, together, evolving
into each other. I walk around the rooms
and see what they were, what they are
becoming. I hear the sound of living
that dwelt in them and the sound
of music that will fill the air, instead
of dust, after dust settles. After dust settles,
I’m going to pick myself up where I dropped
myself off before this house possessed me.
After dust settles, I’m going to edit
the excesses of my life out of this home
and prevail over the dust of my life.
After dust settles.

Poet’s Notes. It’s hard to believe it’s been seven years since we bought this old house in Iowa that we’ve since made our home. And now we’re selling it. It’s said seven is a mystical number. Perhaps “mystical” inherently includes challenges because so far, this has only been a difficult time for me. It’s not easy for me to let go of this home. I’ve literally given it, including its landscaped gardens my heart and soul, having personally redesigned, furnished, and decorated them in three phases within a long and laborious three-year renovation period. There is no square inch of this home and its gardens I do not know intimately. Since their completion according to my vision, they have reigned as a much sought-after site that proudly hosted some of the more notable civic and charitable community events in our city in recent years. Those closely looking at our home and gardens’ features often express admiration for the meticulous attention to detail I’ve devoted to them.

But I have accepted and resigned myself to a new phase in our lives. It is time for my husband and I to execute our retirement plan: to simplify our lives and live essentially on what gives us the most joy in these golden years of our lives—to travel while we still can, and to retire in a place where no home could be grander or more beautiful than the natural environment it’s in. In other words, to hit our bucket travel list and live close to the beauty of nature which for us means moving to another state that could give us our long-desired majestic combination of sea, sky, and mountain. An elder woman friend of mine inspired us to get started on these dreams last year when she said, “I am proud to say that no house no longer owns me.” To be free of possessions that no longer serve our remaining life’s goals—that is our mission as a couple now.

I will miss this beautiful home that has changed me as I changed it during the renovation process. Now that it no longer serves my growth, it is time to let it go. As above poem has foretold, “After dust settles, / I’m going to pick myself up where I dropped/ myself off before this house possessed me. / After dust settles, I’m going to edit / the excesses of my life out of this home / and prevail over the dust of my life.” Sadly, the house itself has become an excess of my life that I have to edit out of my life. But I am consoled by the thought that this house and I could never truly leave each other. I know my spirit will continue to live in it through the beauty of its structure and architectural details, and the flowers, plants, and trees I thoughtfully framed it in. Moreover, the house itself will continue to live in me through the precious memories we’ve created in it with beloved family and friends. If a house had a soul, this one has it. It will haunt me forever, as I will remain its resident ghost.

(All rights reserved. Copyright © 2017 by Victoria G. Smith. For updates on her author events & publications, go to VictoriaGSmith.com. “Like” her on Facebook at Author Victoria G. Smith. “Follow” her on Twitter @AuthorVGSmith)