Our house is a warehouse. It is nothing more than a vessel of storage. There are onions covering the downstairs floor, awaiting my construction of a commercial-grade drying rack of immense proportions. Upstairs, there are green plant-like things looking tired, dry, and done, hanging upside down from every possible tie-off.
Upon close examination of the house, there are indicators of the original intent of a home. A peek past a wall of canned tomatoes reveals what most likely was a perfectly functional kitchen. A simple reshuffling of buckets of kale exposes a passageway, which in all likelihood, was explicitly intended to guide the weary to their sleeping quarters.
These were once called bedrooms because the rooms generally contained beds that were not hidden behind more buckets of fluffy white stuff that approximates some wistful northern attempt at cotton. The dining room table hides beneath the “yield of the day.” This could be bags or buckets or boxes of produce.
And we are talking serious quantity here, not one zucchini and a handful of carrots, fresh from the corner grocer. No sir. Our table is starting to buckle in the middle, and if it doesn’t implode soon, then it will be a miracle. Do I need to mention that there is no room for eating at the table?
All through late winter and early spring, I tolerated our living room and comfortable seating area in the sun, being owned by wooden planks bearing none other than rows of seedlings and the ubiquitous watering can, so that I could make myself useful should I ever wander into the living room. No room for humans (“what do you think this is, a house?”). I felt that this imposition was a mere temporary inconvenience, hardly worth the bother in the greater scheme of things.
But looking at life now, I wonder how differently things might have transpired had I been more assertive, had I for instance, suggested boundaries as part of the bargaining process which pre-dated this project. Would it have been unreasonable of me to expect to return to a recognizable home, after toiling away the day for a handful of berries so the children can have a “sweet” before bedtime?
And the worst is that it doesn’t end. The other day, in a desperately furtive attempt to open up some living space, I started to pack the grow light up to the shed, when Suzanne caught me and stated without uncertainty that she needs the grow-light imminently to start the “Indoor Garden”!