i was so dismayed yesterday as i drove into a small patch of snow flurries, just as i got near our new house. i was going to pick up the keys and drop off a few things. it seemed like a bad omen, that snow.
the house, now empty, seems forlorn. and i had another of those awful moments of the Enormity of the Project. since the first look at this house, we've been looking beyond what's there and concentrating on what we see in our minds - focusing on the potential and not the reality. but now that it's empty that reality is even more stark - sagging wallpaper, greying paint on the walls, low ceilings, the most awful silly putty color of paint on the kitchen cupboards (seriously unappetizing), i could go on and on. we have a five-year-plan for what we want to do with it, but five years is five years and we will live in it in the meantime. and that's just how it is.
but even more overwhelming was a sense of sorrow hanging over the house. the family we're buying it from is moving because their dreams and hopes didn't turn out as they planned and it had become a place they associated with those broken dreams. although i know this doesn't mean it will be a sorrowful place for us, that sadness is hanging there in the air. and it was very nearly physically palpable yesterday when i stopped by in the sudden snowstorm.
i can tell you that next week, although we're not going to paint and fix everything (those pink cupboards have got to go), i can't wait to open all of the windows and let in fresh air and sunshine. fresh air and sunshine should go a long way towards chasing the sadness away, but some friends have suggested a ceremonial
