Reclaiming My Father’s Time-Frozen House

My father’s house sat empty for most of 2020. He longed to go back. The rules grated him, while I was easily engrossed in stories and content to let the months pass.

Patience was a survival skill—Who knew?

When I entered, I felt it—the dust, the stale air, the clothes that were stiff and mildewy at once. My grandmother had been in there looking for spare parts so she wouldn’t have to shop. The TV was missing, as was the coffee machine. I knew as I used the house I would find more missing—knives, favorite bowls, the spoon that was neither too big nor too small.

The first night, I opened all the windows. I made noise and banged on cabinets to give the critters a chance to slink away. I slept. I was just relieved to be there, in my childhood home.

The next day, I began to take inventory. The spiders had taken the ceiling. Termites had taken the floor. It was something out of Dickens, this house that sat, unlived in, since January 2020.

How many conversations had it missed? I almost felt like I was doing it a disservice by entering with news from the outside. No one had sat at that table and worried about bills after losing their job. No children had struggled with the internet and remote learning. Not in here, no. This house was untouched by all the worry. So much hadn’t happened here.

It was a shell.

If it were not for the dust, the spiders, and the ants, I could dare to pretend it all never happened.

But it had, and in my absence, the house was rapidly returning to nature.

First, a sweep. Then, a realization that sweeping would do nothing.

Then, a superficial clean. A check. Everything worked except for what didn’t. The refrigerator would not stay plugged in. I was missing a key to the back door.

My dad’s ex-wife still had some of her things here. I supposed it was time to mail her back her things. Did she even miss them? After 2020, what could possibly be in those bags that she would need?

The wooden trim was brittle and eaten away. I peeled it back from the wall. I started to cough. I had found the origin of the dust. There were ants, termites maybe, eating the trim of the house.

What is my resolution?

In a time where I can’t count on career, when I don’t want to be mean to my body, when I can’t rely on absolutely anything on the outside, I guess it’s just to...keep this house from becoming the forest. All I can do is try to keep critters out, dust from forming, spiderwebs from occupying every corner.

Without the TV, I am free to rearrange the furniture. I put the couch in front of the front door. I open the front door every morning and spend breakfast looking out at the trees, instead of watching a screen.

The hammock is still good. When I’m sneezing from cleaning dust, I take a break by using the hammock. I listen to birds. Leaves fall on me. When the mosquitos begin biting, I go back inside.

Sometimes I wear a painter’s mask when I clean. This is what masks used to be for.

Remember?

I change the bath mat and the shower curtain. My dad’s ex had picked that shower curtain. Now it’s moldy at the bottom.

I want new sheets. A pop of color. I want my room to feel mine again. The past year, I’ve been sharing spaces. I’ve been in places that were not mine. I’ve been in places out of necessity. Now I’m going to feel comfortable and safe.

I must. That’s what I must do for myself. I take out everything that isn’t mine. This will not be a shrine to the past, I decide.

The feeling of home is not going to come from out there—not from a man, or a politician, or a check, or even a vaccine.

This is my little piece of nothing. Nature wants it, the disease has yet to invade it. It is not a battle I can win. It’s another game of patience, like lockdown.

I can reclaim the house from the forest. I can demand the termites leave. I can spend my time sweeping dust and prolonging the inevitable. This is the story I will get lost in—my own.

Just for now.

Just this year.