If these walls could talk.
If the closets could giggle and weep.
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If the kitchen could tell the stories of Nochebuena and Thanksgiving feasts, of birthdays and graduations, of celebrations and milestones scented with the savory comforts of a shared meal.
Walls, closets, kitchen: I know exactly what they would say. I know the tone of their tales, the lessons they would impart. If my house had a voice, surely it would chronicle the long and sometimes haphazard passage of a woman who has come into her own. Finally, and with a healthy measure of both grief and joy.
But a house cannot roar, nor can it whisper or laugh or sing. It simply bears mute witness to the events, large and small, which mold our souls and define our views. A house is a quiet confidante, a repository of dreams, the symbol of our success and the public face of our aspirations — the shelter that, to paraphrase poet Robert Frost, cannot turn you away.
House, sweet house.
Now, after 20 years — two decades! — I’m saying goodbye to home and haven, a place so familiar, so welcoming that, more than any other physical location, it was where I felt safest.
We are downsizing. Actually, I like to think of it as right sizing, making a move for all the obvious and logical reasons. The children are gone, launched, as they say these days, to their own homes or off to college. The space I once needed for five kids and their four-legged pets now feels empty and wasteful. Time to move on, to chart new courses and make new memories.
We are going to a house that is less than half the square footage but only 10 blocks away, a 15-minute walk down a two-lane residential road lined with tall trees, expansive yards and pastel-colored houses. I’m close enough to visit neighbors who, over time and through tribulations, have also become friends.
Still, the moment is bittersweet, like the first taste of a ripening mango or tangerine. As I cram my life into boxes, I lurch between excitement and sadness, from relief to fear — all in a span of seconds. This is, after all, where I weathered hurricanes, raised a family, lost a husband at 37 and then met, in midlife, the man who would rekindle romantic embers.
Downsizing, I must remind myself again and again, is just another rite of passage, not unlike going off to college or buying your first home. Downsizing is what we all do as we grow older, as we shift from accumulating stuff to focusing on memories and experiences. Still … still.
My generation, the indefatigable and always inventive baby boomers, will be doing this in droves in the coming years. I like to think I’m ahead of the curve, a first. Some friends have even confided their envy. They, too, would like to downsize. They, too, want to rid themselves of responsibilities.
Yet, I find myself wandering the halls at odd hours, fingering the familiar indentations in a wall or around a light fixture, opening and closing doors just to hear the squeak one last time. I stand in the middle of a room to memorize not its layout but the simple sensation of being there.
And in the being there, in the soaking it in, I draw comfort from knowing that nothing, not distance or years, not even other occupants, can erase what I’ve already lived. What will always be mine.
(Ana Veciana-Suarez is a family columnist for The Miami Herald. Write to her at The Miami Herald, One Herald Plaza, Miami, FL 33132, or send e-mail to aveciana(at)herald.com.)