OK – that sounds perfectly un-reasonable. And even a little nuts. Maybe so.
But they still annoy me.
Maybe because the Boston I grew up in was a bit shabby,
before the Route 128 high tech “miracle” pumped seemingly unlimited money and
growth into the city’s neighborhoods, universities and suburbs. Maybe because my busy voice coach mother –
who DID love perfect homes – made me dust the perfectly clean apartment every
morning before I left for school. And nagged
me constantly to clean up my typically teen-messy room where only I knew where
to find everything. My mother was the
type who cleaned the apartment just before the cleaning lady arrived. Fortunately I didn’t inherit that gene.
My own house -- the one I live in with my husband -- is what the perfection-focused HGTV would kindly call “cluttered”. There is cat hair occasionally on the cushions.
Plants, paintings, photos, computers, iGadgets, books, video tapes of every
format and the players to go with them, vinyl LP’s and folders for every story
I ever covered vie for space.
We (or at least I) like to think the result is “eclectic”.
Our current landscaping is – to put it succinctly –
nonexistent. But the annuals and
perennials and bushes and grass -- and the pots my husband fills each spring with
impatiens -- somehow blend into the rocks and trees which occupy most of our
land in a way which says “welcome friend”.
It’s a place which looks like people live there. Comfortably.
Which is, perhaps, another way of saying it would qualify
for an HGTV makeover.
When I walk or run around my gym’s neighborhood of small,
50’s era houses – many expanded over the years – I think of all the young
families which once or currently live there. Starter homes we used to say.
Typically the owners are stretching to make the mortgage payments. So how do
they afford the landscapers on riding mowers I see manicuring the tiny lawns? And why?
I could mow those lawns myself in 10 minutes with an old fashioned,
unpowered mower.
I guess it’s that perfect house syndrome again. Even handyman specials are perfect on HGTV. And
as we walk or drive through our towns we all see the same perfect, estate-sized
McMansions built out to the property lines. We watch as each leaf which falls this
time of year is swiftly blown away by a small army of men with leaf blowers.
The flowers never droop from lack of water and never wither publically because
their heads are professionally snapped off at the first sign of brown.
Remember what Albert Einstein once said? “If a cluttered
desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a
sign?” He of course was talking about
creativity. And so am I. I’m talking
about the overall environment needed to think big thoughts. Or as Tinkerbell would have put it – lovely
thoughts. The ones which allow you to fly.
A house is not a home until it’s lived in. Until there are piles of real print magazines
from a nearly forgotten era sitting, nearly forgotten, on the floor. Until someone
puts his feet up on the slightly scratched coffee table and gently transfers
the cat from the couch to his lap. Until half the tiger lilies lining the walk are
eaten by the resident deer each summer. And the other half die a natural death
as fall closes in. Until there is an oak chair in need of more varnish where
one can sit in the midst of it all and contemplate the universe.
You know – maybe I DO like perfect houses after all. It’s just how you define perfection.
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