Dream Houses

I'm a homebody. My home is my castle. My zodiac sign is Cancer, the crab, who can't survive without the protection of its shell. My surroundings reflect nearly every aspect of who I am. I'm steeped in nostalgia, sentiment, and memories, good and bad. I've kept the ticket stubs to every concert I've ever attended. I have photos dating back to the time of Instamatic cameras and journals from age 15 on. I've always imagined my own home as a funky, eclectic showcase of my experiences, compulsive collecting, and love of design in all its incarnations.

My first apartment was small studio with an orange, shag carpet and a Murphy bed. I absolutely adored it. Thrift store furniture, concert fliers pulled from telephone poles, and a makeshift rug fashioned from a piece of 50's linoleum made it feel like a kitschy, vintage shop on Melrose Avenue. I graduated to a one-bedroom in the same apartment complex a few years later, but when the cockroaches objected to my sharing of their space, I allowed them to bully me from the building. This left me at a crossroads: find another apartment and continue to work a job I hated in order to pay the bills...or pursue my lifelong dream of a career in fashion design, switch to working part-time, and move back home until I was once again in a position to pay a large rent.

So I moved back to my childhood home with the parents who never understood or particularly liked me. For one semester, I made the long commute to work, then to trade school, then back home. I learned that my shortcomings as a student were not limited to subjects I find boring or difficult. It extends to my interests and passions. My ability to arrive at class at the exact right time (neither too early or too late, God forbid I might actually have to speak to someone) was still a challenge. My shyness and anti-social tendencies didn't care that this was fashion, not algebra. My crippling fear of failure decided that being a wash-out was preferable to not succeeding; try explaining the distinction to my psyche.

I sank into a deep depression. One dream dead. One job lost. One's pride squashed. I was now stuck in a house in which I'd vowed to never return, in a considerable amount of credit card debt. I was in a small bedroom surrounded by a ridiculous amount of possessions I had nowhere to display and in some cases, even unpack. I began taking regular sojourns to Planet Zoloft and slowly re-entered the world. I went from working one day a week, to a few days, then part-time, and eventually full time. Fate had led me to the field of education, which was hilarious as I'd always abhorred school. My high school attendance record makes Ferris Bueller look like an overachieving goody-goody. But alas, not only do I come from a long line of educators, I'm actually good at it.

Working in a kindergarten led me to discovering my secret talent. Everyone's got that one thing at which they are naturally good. It can be a useful skill that leads to success and fulfillment, or it can be a rather useless one that nonetheless comes in handy every now and then. For instance, my sister is a highly intelligent, educated, hard worker whose secret talent is puppeteering. She has never studied or pursued this, but put a puppet or stuffed animal in her hands and it comes alive. My talent: I can freehand cut any animal out of paper. No pattern or template. If I can envision it, I can cut it. One year, on the first day of school, I was asked to help with an inconsolably homesick student in another classroom. For some reason it occurred to me to ask the child if she would like a bunny puppet to keep her company. She nodded through her tears. I grabbed some scrap construction paper, folded in half, and zzip zzip cut cut...two bunnies. I glued them back-to-back on a popsicle stick then drew a happy face on one side and a sad face on the other. I told her she could decide which bunny would keep her company throughout the day. It did the trick! She stopped crying and every day that week, she brought the bunny (which got grimier and more tattered) with her to school.

After several years as a kindergarten classroom aide while moonlighting at the after school program, I worked my way up to the position of Aftercare Program Director. It was a job I never sought, would never have considered, and yet was perfect for me. My design/crafty side reveled in the creation of new and exciting projects. I was working 10-12 hour days but I didn't mind. I was completely in my element. Our students loved our program which meant the parents loved it. We had numerous kids attend not because their parents worked, but simply because they enjoyed it.

Our projects ranged from a collaborative collage where each student illustrated a section of the city then each section was carefully cut and collaged together to create a giant map of the city. Pop-art Pet Portraits were comprised of students' depiction of their pets (or imaginary pets), a pithy advertising slogan, and a painted background. Mother's Day cards were 'moms as superheroes'. Cardstock, fancy paper, mom's headshot atop their child's drawing of a superhero outfit were carefully assembled to give the card the look of a comic book. We explored everything from polymer clay to abstract art to decoupage.

We made our own "worlds". Worlds could be whatever you desired. There were Star Wars worlds, amusement park worlds, ocean worlds, zoo, circus, dinosaur, Pokemon, Sonic the Hedgehog worlds...These worlds began with a cardboard box, scrapbook or wrapping paper, scissors and a lot of tacky glue. Water bottle caps, old CDs, paper towel tubes, and cut-images from magazines became scenery, furniture, and rollercoasters . The overused advertising phrase "limited only by your imagination" was an apt philosophy. If a kid could conceive it, the idea could be brought to fruition in one way or another. I hoped to demonstrate that creativity and fun are not limited by money, resources, or a computer. Kids started to think outside the box. Parents would tell me that their children would stop them from throwing away things like i-Phone boxes (perfect for beds), toilet paper tubes (towers, slides, lighthouses), and sauce containers (swimming pools and hot tubs). Their minds were opening to infinite possibilities. I'd like to think this widening of the mind spilled into other aspects of their lives as well.

Unfortunately, after 5 years, the bubble burst. We were an offsite kindergarten and transitional-kindergarten that had been moved to a separate campus due to overcrowding at the main elementary school. Our district-wide after school program didn't want to be bothered with our small congregation of 75 or so students, so we were in the unique position of fending for ourselves. As long as there were no problems and we didn't lose money, the powers-that-be left us alone. Around this time, I tentatively looked into once again moving to a place of my own. I should've known better. District enrollment dropped, and budget cuts had to be made. The kindergarten classes were returned to the main campus which now put them under the auspices of the huge, district-run after school program. So where did that leave me? To quote the film Reservoir Dogs: "Somebody's shoved a red-hot poker up our ass, and I want to know whose name is on the handle!". I got royally screwed. Although I had seniority, support letters from parents, and superlative performance reviews, I was made redundant. Come fall, everyone on my team was reassigned except me. I lost my job, my seniority, my pension. This violated terms of the union and although they did advocate for me....long story short: the school district broke me. Broke my spirit and my heart. But that's a story for another day.

This leads me to Dream Houses. I started doing an arts and crafts summer camp for elementary-school age children. The Worlds morphed into Dream Houses. If Malibu Barbie can have one, so should everyone else. You've always wanted a rooftop swimming pool? No problem. You'd like a disco dance floor in your living room? Go for it. Exotic animals, trampolines, a military compound in your backyard? Why the hell not? Amazing artwork and designer furnishings (cut from high-end catalogs) graced the walls. On New Year's Eve 2020, I held a party in my Dream House and posted pics to my Instagram. In the middle of a global pandemic, what else could one do? I live vicariously through my dream houses, why not socialize vicariously through them as well.

After more than a year of taking care of my elderly parents due to Covid-19, I realized I can never move out of my family home. The pandemic meant they should not venture out or do much of anything. I had to step up. It was my time to take care of them. I've lived virtually rent-free for ten years through various personal, career, and financial crises. Now that I've gotten most of my vices under control and finally have a bit of a nest egg saved, shall I announce, "Arrivaderci, parentals!" I can't do that. My time of reckoning had come. And so I make Dream Houses. I may never have the sanctuary of my very own space, surrounded by my beloved possessions, or the privacy to attempt to have a personal life...but I can still dream.