It's an amazing thing, redoing an entire house. We've taken down the plaster and lathe and the studs are exposed. Marbles found inside the walls, depression glass and a shoe found underneath the attic stairs. A children's book from a school that no longer exists. One day it will all be finished and done precisely to our liking. I'll remember when it was covered in plaster dust and where the walls used to be. I'll know where flames came up the wall and caught the closet door on fire from through the floor and that it was caused by a gas lamp. I'll think back to the fields and the empty houses before they were torn down, ravaged by the elements of the weather and an unjust society. Some people yearn for progress and economy, development and bureaucracy. I prefer gentle, soulful folk and peaceful evenings, wide open spaces with things that grow and nourish. My dog and I are in the living room upstairs. It's the first room on the second floor with arranged furniture. The end of day is softened by pastels and a lilting summer breeze. A woman is peeing on the sidewalk across the street. I'm sitting on the love seat next to old window weights leaning in the open wall. I don't care that the neighborhood is rough. I don't mind our tiny bathroom or makeshift kitchen. Soon we'll put the baby's room together. I can see him now, crawling on this rug. Gazing across this raw, open space, walls to put up and paint, I see a future with creativity and happiness. I'm certain there will be sad times, hard times, lean times, but this house speaks to me in the dusk. I have no worries. It's not much right now but we'll get there... room by room, week by week, year by year.
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