This House Tells A Story
A Guest Post by Alice Goldbloom
The morning sun streams into the bedroom through the slats of the window blinds. I’ve been awake since I heard the early-morning thwack of the newspapers against the front door. I have made my morning coffee — precisely as I like it — strong, with hot milk, and brought it back to bed with the newspapers. As early as it is, Jonathan is long gone. He starts his day at the crack of dawn at the gym before going to the office. After years of rushing kids to school and running to work, I have the luxury of time to myself and my slow morning ritual: sitting with my coffee, organizing myself for the day, scanning the newspapers, checking The New York Times online, and reading Heather Cox Richardson’s daily missive called Letters From An American that lands in my email inbox around three in the morning. I am a news junkie, an addiction I would not give up.
My morning ritual unfolds in a home I love. Its rooms are much more than the place where I live. They are much more than the beautiful things I have comfortably arranged. The rooms are my sanctuary — relaxing, restoring, and reviving.
My house tells a story of a daughter of a man who came to Canada with only five dollars in his pocket and a woman who arrived as part of a government-sponsored immigration program to resettle displaced people after the Second World War. I look around and see the hopes of my immigrant mother, that her child will have an easier life, a safer home and more opportunities than she did, have been fulfilled.
I am astounded I have so many possessions. So much more than plenty. As I drink my coffee in this quiet enclave of Edwardian townhouses in downtown Montreal, I rarely lose sight of my parent’s stories.
Everything in this house recounts my story. I sit at a dining table that belonged to my husband’s grandmother. It sits on top of a Persian rug from his grandfather’s office. It’s well-worn or distressed, not by some machine as is now the fashion, but by over one hundred years of use. I open a dresser drawer that belonged to my husband’s father when he was a child. I look up at the elaborate floral pattern of a heavy pewter plate hanging on the wall, one of the only possessions my mother brought from Holland when she came to Canada. It was a farewell gift from her girlfriends at the Phillips Electric factory. I see the other item she brought with her each time I open my kitchen drawer, a silver baby spoon with a windmill pattern, and the little sails on the windmill spin. Although it’s tarnished, it reminds me she was hopeful about having a family when she came to this country.
There is an oil painting of a landscape hanging in my kitchen that my mother gave me when I was in my twenties. It’s unsigned, and who knows how she acquired it? She loved it but believed I needed it more. Years later, she came to visit and paid me a compliment. “You have a beautiful house,” she said. Then she announced that she wanted the painting back. Maybe she thought she now needed it more than I did. I’ll never know. I ignored the request because I had come to love it too.
This house tells the story of a long marriage. The rooms are filled with books and art that Jonathan and I have collected together. There are photographs of children and summer vacations. This house tells the story of a fortunate life, one of comfort and privilege, untouched by any hardship. This house tells a story of many friendships, with books and gifts received from friends and photos of their children's communions, bar mitzvahs and marriages. This house has all the signs and layers of my lifetime.
This house tells the story of who I am. Its colours, furnishings, objects, and textiles are my autobiography. The unfinished projects that I have in mind tell me who I am becoming. There is always something in need of repair and renewal, but that’s like me. We’re a work in progress. And I start my day by pausing to take stock. The world news is often terrible, but at the same time, life is beautiful.
Alice Goldbloom is a nonfiction book editor who published her first blog story in 2018. Since then, she has written about family, aging, marriage, social issues and the importance of random kindness. Her newsletter, where she features her own stories and those of others, is called A Considerable Age.
What stories does your home tell?
Thanks for this lovely post, Alice. I especially loved that you didn’t give back the painting. 😉
I really appreciate the warmth and kindness of your writing.