Keith Dorwick
A JOYFUL HOUSE
Usually,
I hate to fly. It’s inefficient, I tell myself every single time I bustle to
the nearest airport, wait till my flight is called, and then spend hours in the
air, time I could use for my writing, or my research, or anything else other
than feeling the pressure build in my ears; however, my real worry is how I’ll
look in my casket after the fiery death that follows the plane crash. After
all, planes always fall out of the sky. It’s an automatic consequence of any
flight to any destination. I am deeply aware at all times that the only time
more dangerous than takeoff is landing, but never forget, too, that planes have
simply fallen apart in the air, usually by the failure of one forty-nine cent
screw, causing a total loss of life. The multitude of ways people have died in
air accidents horrifies me. Planes have been hit by meteorites. A pilot was
blinded by snow glare over Labrador and crashed. One airplane flew into a
railway tunnel rather than over it. And Patsy Cline really fell to pieces in
1963 when she was killed in an airplane crash. However, because of the number
of papers I give at various conferences and because of a distance relationship
with my Chicago-based partner of sixteen years, I can safely say I have hated
flying to more places than most people have hated flying, from the Honduras
(where I was sure the plane would be hijacked, given the number of warnings the
leader of our medical mission had given us about not wandering alone in San
Pedro Sula) to Europe, where the chief danger was boredom, a long slow sinking
into a fatal torpor.
But there is one segment of one flight that I always love: the
short jaunt from Houston to the small university town in which I work and live.
Partially it’s the sky; I’ve always loved skyscapes such as those painted by
English artist John Constable, vast acres of light and shadow such as his 1814 Stour Valley and Dedham Church, in which
fully half of the 22 by 31 inch image is taken up by a detailed study of the
sky over a pastoral landscape, or of the Hudson River School artists, Church
and Cole, Cropsey and Durand. As one critic has noted, “Hudson River School
painters, largely led by the work and writings of Thomas Cole, created the
first distinctly ‘American’ landscapes. Unlike the orderly landscapes of European
artists, Cole and the artists that followed him created vast, awe-inspiring
scenes which showed the unrestrained and even threatening characteristics of
the American wilderness.” As I walk about in Lafayette, the sky over
southwestern Louisiana reminds me of these paintings, perhaps because of the
sense one has of a vast, open space. No Sears Tower interrupts the eye’s
journey from near to far, and the flatness of our landscape adds to one’s sense
of infinity.
But the real joy of this trip is a simple one: watching I-10,
the expressway that reaches between (and beyond) Houston to New Orleans unfold.
It’s the grand progression of the slow transition from farmland and forest to
the built up area surrounding my hometown that fills me with a surprising contentment.
When the clouds allow, I watch I-10 off to the left of my plane the entire
flight, and it gives me a deep pleasure to recognize the landmarks, more with
each passing year as I fly this route again and again. Lake Charles was the
first city I could name – there is, after all, the lake it’s named after, and
the smoke of the fires of the refineries there go up, like the unholy dead of
the Revelation of John, forever and ever. Once, on a very clear day, Eunice, a
small town northwest of Lafayette, and one of the centers of Cajun culture, was
visible; one could see the large plant just outside the city limits. Closer to
I-10 there are Jennings and Crowley, small towns in which people I know and
love live. The delight of this journey is really quite understandable to me:
being able to know the towns along this stretch of Louisiana from several miles
up means, in some sense, I belong here.
* * * * *
During the academic year, I live by myself quite happily in a
two bedroom condo off one of the busiest streets in Lafayette. I’ve had to put
a lot of work into my place. At the time of the purchase, you wouldn’t exactly
call my house fancy. Throughout, the walls, doorframes, and even the kitchen
cabinets were painted a grey so neutral that it failed to be a neutral color,
that said in no uncertain terms, “I am a color you are not supposed to see.”
The chandelier in the dining area consisted of five wood arms, each tipped with
those flickering flame lights that cast about five watts worth of light. The
window treatments downstairs were made of a thick material that reminded me of
World War II blackout curtains. They looked as if someone had hung small area
rugs on a pulley system that caused them to rise in thick folds. Every switch,
every cable connector plate and every electrical plug was beige. The blades of
the downstairs ceiling fan were a grey smoked transparent plastic, and the
light above the main entrance was made of a dark yellow glass that cut down the
amount of light created by the fixture to almost nothing. Beige and gray, those
were the enduring themes of my place when I bought it, and even with every lamp
turned on, day or night, every room seemed very dark.
The closing papers from the purchase show how little money the
previous owner took from the sale after her home equity loans were paid off;
the changes she made in preparation for the sale were done as modestly as
possible. Only the kitchen had received any kind of major upgrade. Though I’ve
since had it painted white, the gray cabinets were an odd contrast to the beige
appliances. The stainless steel sink and stove are absolutely impossible to
keep clean, something that torments me since I am positively rabbinical in my
desire to have a neat and sanitary kitchen.
What isn’t renovated is all too clearly original with the
building: the townhome’s flooring is either linoleum or wall to wall carpeting,
where I prefer hardwood floors or ceramic tile. I grew up in Chicago, and
became spoiled by the housing stock built in the Victorian period. Hardwood and
ceramic floors were what well to do but not rich people could afford. They were
the building materials of the middle to upper middle class, and they’re still
very available in Chicago, though they are leftovers, traces of old elegance in
need of renovation. Hardwood floors, once and now again a mark of elegance that
adds value to new construction, were considered ugly and vulgar in the sixties
and seventies and painted, or covered with wall to wall carpeting, treatments
that now require stripping, sanding and refinishing by paid professionals. I
learned the need for contractors from an abortive effort to refinish a dining
room floor in a turn of the century apartment on the north side of Chicago. I
was young then and poor, and thought I’d save myself some money. Though it was
only a rental, all I could afford at the time, I thought about sweat equity as
I bought a handheld sander and several dozen sheets of sandpaper in various
grades. After working every single free hour I had for months on end, I had
four square feet of nice, white oak flooring that needed little more than a
coat or two of stain and several coats of polyurethane varnish. When I threw
away both the sander and the sandpaper later that month, I was, from that
moment, a happier man.
* * * * *
My condominium here in the South was built in the mid eighties,
and its age often shows. But for all of the changes I want to make, people
often find it difficult to lure me out to a show or one of our local festivals,
though I always have a great time when they succeed. Only a friend’s panicked
insistence caused me to seek other shelter during Hurricane Lily, when we still
feared a Level Five hurricane and not a mere tropical storm.
My bedroom is the most utilitarian of the major rooms; it is
quite small. It barely has room for my bed and a chest of drawers. The original
ceiling fan had a big white globe hanging from it; I’d bump my head on it every
time I jumped into bed to read at night. When my boyfriend and I replaced it
with a five foot ceiling fan, it dominated the room, and later, we replaced
that new fixture with a four foot ceiling fan that knows its place, thank you.
The bedroom does not have room for all of my bedroom furniture and the chest of
drawers has found its way to the living room, where I am using it as a
sideboard.
And the living room is my favorite place in the world: painted a
bright clear yellow with white trim, and hung with original prints from the
Inuit tradition of Canada, the space is open from the main entrance to the kitchen.
It was this room that made me decide, on a single glance, to buy my place.
There is often classical music playing, on a small stereo system purchased for
a party at the insistence of one of my ex-students; he’d been appalled that the
television set had been relegated upstairs to the home office, in the larger of
the two bedrooms. Downstairs, there is also a small dining nook, a guest
bathroom, and some of the most comfortable chairs, couches and sofas (mostly
bought used and all in mission style) I’ve ever owned placed throughout the
living space. I have learned not to try to do my scholarly reading in the wing
backed chair, which is actually a recliner in disguise, not unless I wish to
take a nap. Always, the room is full of light: torchieres and ceiling fans made
of brushed chrome and alabaster by night, sunlight and some of the lamps by
day. Though the windows are designed to keep out heat and hurricanes and are,
therefore, smaller than I would like, they do, however, look out to my small
garden.
The freesias, calla lilies, hyacinths, crocuses and daffodils I
have planted are a combination which will bloom year round in Louisiana’s
climate when it is established in a year or so, and my garden teaches me
patience. Planting bulbs is an analogue to the act of faith that is the
Eucharistic rite: the central mystery of Christianity is that nothing lives
until it dies. You bury what is to all appearances a withered and dead onion
and it becomes a tall clump of yellow daffodils in a few months time. Or so I
hope. When one of my colleagues visited, he peered closely and asked why I’d
planted onions in my front yard. Sometimes I wonder just what weeds were
included in the black dirt I mixed in with Louisiana clay, or if I purchased
leeks rather than lilies. Still, the daffodils will be back in a few months
after our short winter here in the deep South.
My small patch of front lawn includes a large elm (I think it’s
an elm, anyway) and a wood and metal park bench, put there against condominium
regulations but used by many of my neighbors when I’m not around. When the
weather allows, there’s often an impromptu barbecue in progress on my lawn when
I arrive home from work. On these nights I don’t have to worry about cooking
for one.
There’s a joy in the everyday, in doing normal household tasks,
though I’ve had my disasters. Perhaps it is especially best I do not spend too
much time in the kitchen. During a recent exploration of Cajun cooking (my
first effort), my partner and I, a lawyer and a university professor, found
ourselves unable to use the injector that came with the marinade we used to
prepare a ham for a church supper. We pressed that snubby little tip deep into
the ham and injected the marinade into the meat, only to see it bubble just
underneath the surface layer of the ham and then ooze out. When we tried to
shoot more of the marinade in, it broke through the outer layer of ham and
burst forth, a thick, sticky fountain that sprayed onto every floor and every
wall, and finally, on a third attempt, all over the nice white shirt I planned
to wear to church later that morning. It wasn’t until we gave up and swore off
using Cajun injectables, and after washing every surface of my kitchen, that we
found the injector’s needle taped to the inside of the plunger. That allowed us
to send the marinade deep within the ham, making it fresh and moist and sweet
when it finished baking.
Even so, even in the midst of my cooking troubles and
renovations, I am a homebody, a far cry from the party boy of my youth. It suits
my partner and I to bring beauty to my place as we continue to remodel it; as
he says, one of the most important things in life one can do is to take care of
things. So far we have replaced three ceiling fans, a chandelier, two closet
lights, the window trim downstairs, all of the light switches and electrical
plates on the first floor (I am taking out the old beige ones and replacing
them with white ones that match the trim) and that awful light over the main
entrance. There are future plans, including a replacement of every bit of
flooring, though that will take some saving.
I feel called to this slow transformation of my house; I feel very grounded and very safe, like a monk in his monastery. Oh, it’s no wonder I enjoy the flight from Houston to Lafayette. It means I am on the last leg of my journey home.
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Last updated: October 16, 2003.