Cheers everyone and welcome to Friday’s Morning Open Thread.
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Notes from Below Sea Level
“The House in the Alley”
Geography alone can’t make you happy—though certainly it can facilitate or supplement that which you bring with you. A sense of place, a feeling of home starts with a sense of self.
Like most people (and the vast majority of people who earn a living as construction workers), I have designed my dream house over the years and subject to my growing understanding of self. I even spent time working up rough architectural drawings, down to the details of the segmental arched roof in the brick-walled kitchen, the enclosed patio, rear loggia, and a physical layout that will allow my son access to every part of the house without assistance. The guest quarters—in this fantasy—is larger than the house I presently live in and the interior, covered walkways alone occupy almost a thousand square feet.
Some of these elements were inspired by the very first house I renovated in New Orleans: an 1830-31 brick creole cottage originally built by a blacksmith from the Quarters, complete with detached kitchen and second floor living area (the original double fireplace and garçonnière). The stables were behind the two-story back house, set slightly apart and perpendicular to the home and the nearby Mississippi River. I fell in love with it and the long process of restoration was a labor of love. The house that became home was in a neighborhood that back then was mostly known for its empty warehouses, high crime rate, and crack houses.
But it was my place; and 22 years later (I walked the neighborhood about a month ago) it sits near ground zero of what is casually referred to as gentrification. I couldn’t afford that place today by any stretch of the imagination. Sill, as much sweat equity I put into that place and the memories it holds (my son was born during renovation and lived there the first year of his life) it really doesn’t measure to the house I’ve spent years dreaming of and refining on paper.
And neither of those—the real and imagined—compares to the house I would live in if life hadn’t shown up. That place, of plastered stone walls and slate roof, would be a small three-storied place facing a narrow alley, supported on both sides by similar structures. The water would always run cold, the wide-slatted old growth wood floors would have an annoying creak no matter where you stepped, and the electrical circuits would barely support the light bulbs and ceiling fans. Its widows would open to the alley and the sounds would drift shamelessly in and out—food for the imagination. The back would face east, with only the room on the third floor having a window, just above the writing desk next to my bed.
Even for those who know me, that house would be hard to place—but it is a house that has its own particular geography. This house sits in a tiny village perched on the side of a mountain in northern Italy overlooking Lake Maggiore and is the place I fled to years ago when life felt overwhelming and my mind needed space and time. Before my divorce, before my child was born, before I could face my mistakes as a husband and friend, before I had a realistic sense of who I was and what I needed in life.
In the midst of that turmoil I called my life, the Italian home offered its space for a bit of healing time. A friend’s father who lived in Chelsea, London (bought long before it was the affluent place it is today) borrowed the Italian house every summer from a dancer he knew from Australia. He and I came to know each other during the renovation of his daughter’s fiancé’s mansion in New Orleans’ Irish Channel and he (sensing my desperation) offered it to me for the summer. A master slate mason of the old style, he threw in an offer to teach me the Italian method of laying slate without nails or cleats. My life at a crossroads, I wanted nothing but to escape the net of diurnal misery and a 20-year relationship that everyone but me knew from its start was never meant to last.
I flew to Turin and then made my way northeast to a place that didn’t appear on most maps. The village was tiny but welcoming; I quickly discovered that not a single person besides me and my host spoke English. There was nothing picturesque about it—just a jumble of buildings stretching one slag-stoned street up an Italian Alp from a communal parking lot shaded by an ancient cork oak. With help I made it up the street and right down a narrow alley to the third door on the right. The door and all the windows were wide open and a slight breeze moved the curtains on the upper floors. I could hear my friend inside on the ground floor cooking and singing along to some opera I didn’t recognize.
Backpack on my shoulder, I stood there and took in the small place—the cobblestone beneath my feet, the blue sky above, the foreign smells and unfamiliar sounds, and the feel of place. Three rooms—one atop the other—I took the one seldom used. It had a window above the desk and afforded me light enough in the mornings to write and quiet throughout the day. Paint was peeling from most of the walls, the doors and windows stuck, the plumbing and electricity were fundamental verging on prehistoric, the roof leaked, and I fell in love with the place in the time it took me to climb the stairs and stash my bag on the empty bed.
Over the better part of a month, those roughly 600 square feet became for me Mann’s Lido, Wolf’s room of one’s own, and Hemingway’s clean, well-lighted place. In terrible shape and in need of constant care, there was something about that place that suited me perfectly. Thinking back this morning, I know that what defined that place was the fact that it was a safe haven at a time I needed one and that it offered a guarded openness that appealed to my sense of community and privacy. In Henry Howard’s poem “The Things That Cause a Quiet Life,” he writes of the fruitful ground, the quiet mind, the equal friend, and true wisdom joined with simpleness. That, my friend, is an apt description of both that house and my goals in life.
I can dream of castles in the sky, but at the end of the day I recognize I need only space enough to settle my bones and light enough to read. All else is accoutrement to some extent. These days, my ideal home isn’t the massive compound of convenience and modernity but that small place part way down a narrow alley that catches the evening breeze and takes in the morning sun. That cloistered place where my partner's voice could filter up carrying the words of a tune I don’t recognize. That place where geography meets self and happiness resides.
(August 2018 — April 2024)
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My hope for the day is that each of you celebrates life in one way or another and finds peace in these turbulent times. Be well, be kind, and appreciate the love you have in your life.
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Grab your coffee or tea and join us, please.
What's on your mind this morning?