If I Were A Tree

I don't do change well. I like stability and loyalty, avoid dysfunction and distraction. If I were a tree, I guess I'd be some kind of Japanese bonsai, slow-growing, evergreen. I've always dreamed of having a bonsai collection. They are lovely plants in many variations, but I prefer the ones that look like small juniper trees. The angled, stretched-out branches always look so peaceful. Having caught the tail end of the sixties, I suppose peace feels good to me. Or maybe I am just a stream that doesn't care for rocks to disturb my glass-smooth serenity.

But despite this love of tranquility, I found myself putting my house on the market not once but twice this year. The first time was a misery. It was February, and we'd just gotten the toilet paper out of the lawn from a vigorous, enthusiastic rolling that had been performed in our live oak trees. Unfortunately, it rained violently right after the fabulous papering job, and the tissue paper glued to the rough live oak bark like white mold. Sodden clumps stuck to the pebbled sidewalk, a papier mache that was impossible to remove. It looked as if a sewer had blown up in our yard. So we waited out the paper snowstorm, picking bits of tissue daily from the lawn, sidewalk and trees, and three weeks later put the For Sale sign in the yard.

It rained a lot and was very cold during most of the showings. We had an offer a few weeks later, but couldn't find a house for our family to move into quickly as no one was selling a house in a down housing market if they didn't have to. The buyer wanted our house in two weeks and that was a deadline we couldn't meet, so we took the house off the market.

The family was devastated by this near-miss, with the exception of my husband. Secretly, he was thrilled. We are parsimonious by nature and had paid very little for our house sixteen years ago, and my husband knew he was within ten years of being mortgage-free. With one child in college, one in a private high school, and having purchased three cars in one year, the man of the house was feeling pretty good about leaving his armchair just where it was.

For years I'd been thinking about writing in a different genre, so I resumed tackling that. In September, I began looking for a new agent. None of these were easy decisions, but they were changes that had to be made. Yet I thought I could catch a whiff of change still in the air, so I began working forward. It takes me about a month to write a column, so I stored up a few, just in case.

Then I learned that the convict who had been living behind us had a shot at getting out of jail. I was not happy with this news. The summer morning he'd been arrested, the police had come with firearms drawn between the houses to arrest him. At that moment, my son had been outside on the patio stomping on bugs, and the realization that there had been only a thin wooden fence between him and drawn firearms kickstarted the panic I'd only recently begun to forget.

I felt I had no choice, and on the second day of October, put the house back on the market. My kids were happy, my husband very sad to realize that he just might end up with a tax-credit buyer--and this time, I'd found a house I wanted which would, in fact, mean an increase in his mortgage payments, though not by much. He looked like a man on the way to a shopping mall—hung-dog and dreary. My last words to my real estate agent as the listing went live were, "If we don't have a buyer by December 1st, we'll probably take the house off the market for the holidays."

The next night we were sitting on the sofa in our evening lounge wear. At eight-thirty our doorbell rang. It was our neighbor, and he was interested in buying our house. We didn't really take him all that seriously. We'd barely had the house on the market twenty-four hours.

But the next day we got a very good offer. My husband panicked. We ran out and put an offer on a house I hated but which he loved, only to find there was basically a lake underneath that house. We tried to take our house back off the market again because our neighbors wanted to move in thirty days, and we felt there was no way we could find another home, go through all the inspections, and meet the closing deadline in time. It was the middle of the fall, and our son was about to take his PSAT exams. We had no idea where we'd go. We hadn't even been looking—except for a house I'd found in August which was, still, miraculously on the market. It was four doors down from my husband's sisters, which delighted me. I was very interested in being closer to family, our church, the stores that I frequented. But my husband had been deaf to my pleas for so long that I'd begun to give up on ever being in town. And I wasn't sure what was holding him back on the little house I wanted. It was no dream home, perhaps, but I knew it could be much different than it was. It had been on the market a couple years before and hadn't sold--perfect for me and my frugal nature, because I seem to be a fixer-upper kind of girl. I like a challenge, and this house had plenty. Best of all, it was only fifteen minutes away from my son's school, as opposed to forty. On cold, dark mornings, sending a newly-licensed teenager who'd been up studying late into bad weather had been wrecking that serenity I prefer. There were ripples in my pond, and I wanted a change.

Reluctantly, my husband offered on the house I had wanted for nearly four months. Words can't describe the joy I felt at knowing that the little house I wanted might soon be mine.

The changes hit in earnest. My husband wanted new floors put in and some rooms painted. I scurried around to line up workmen. I ordered movers and began boxing things up. Suddenly, my neighbors were throwing us a going away gathering. And then, the day before Thanksgiving, the movers pulled up in front of our new house.

Now, every fairy tale has its villains, and this fairy tale of change certainly has its warts. The movers took out our old mailbox and our neighbor's with their eighteen-wheeler, leaving nothing behind but rubble and us with red faces. At the new house, the furnace on the side of the house where my daughter's new room was wouldn't turn on. She came home from college the day we moved in with a sinus infection. Miserable, she huddled underneath the electric blanket, thankful for that, but feeling sicker than I've ever seen her. The sink stopped up and stayed half full of water for four days, and the dishwasher did not work. I have learned my lesson about putting spaghetti down the disposal, and that there is an on/off valve that directs the water for the dishwasher. We put our twenty-one-year-old refrigerator in the garage while we waited two weeks for the new one to be delivered, so we'd troop outside in the cold darkness, dodging moving boxes and squeezing between the fridge door and the car to grab what we needed. When you've got a sick kid and it's cold in the house, the sink is clogged, and the dishwasher doesn't work, time begins to crawl. One night we ordered pizza, and the pizza never came. They called to say the manager was driving around with it in his car, but it never arrived. My husband and I laughed, said we had new house moving blues, and determined to hang on.

But none of us ever said "what were we thinking?" I was too enamored of my new house. Every day I was totally overjoyed with it. I busied myself unpacking boxes. My son helped like a trooper. My husband, who must have had his doubts as the bills rose, complained only tokenly. My daughter went back to college, saying that she thought the new house was "awesome."

That's what I thought, too. Eventually we got the heat fixed, the dishwasher, and the sink. Things began to smooth out. And on the second day of December, exactly one week after we'd moved in and precisely two months after we'd put up the For Sale sign, my son called down the hall, "Mom, did you know it's snowing?"

Sure enough, a one inch crust of snow lay on the ground, clean and sparkling. I sent my teenager off to school, thankful that he was only driving fifteen minutes on city roads as opposed to forty minutes on highways.

Now, nearly three weeks into life in the new house, everything is much smoother. The Christmas tree has been tried in three spots, and a location finally chosen if not agreed upon unanimously. The stockings are hung, dangling from tiny hooks left by the previous owners. Amidst the sense of holiday, I look forward to the relative unknown of the new year. Once again, I relish the peace of calm and tranquility of a glass-smooth pond. I will always be a lover of stodgy routine. But I have to admit, the occasional ripple is refreshing, too.

Reading, reading: First, A BOLD FRESH PIECE OF HUMANITY by Bill O'Reilly—growing up autobios are always fun! He's just as bombastic a personality in writing as he is on television. Following him through his childhood and college years/early career decisions is engaging because he's just as hard on himself as any of his much-lauded nuns who helped keep him in line. Next, to clear out the writing cobwebs—or again, for more self-effacing autobiographical insight--ON WRITING, by Stephen King, is a wonderful treatise on the topic from the master.

Munchin' On Popcorn: On Christmas Day we headed out to see Sherlock Holmes—we really enjoyed it! Robert Downey Jr. is always wonderfully mesmerizing. Then, from the classic vault, BROADWAY BILL with Myrna Loy for a wonderful horse story/coming of age/romance—I cheered for Broadway Bill to win the race, and cried at the inevitable conclusion. Wonderful popcorn and hot tea movie on a cold night!

Funny Lady: "I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall."~~Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945

Comment any time during the month of January to be eligible for the drawing of three five dollar Amazon e-certs, chosen by Fresh Fiction! Until next time,

Tina Leonard

Tina Leonard has a publishing history of more than forty projects. With sales of over a million books, she is also a Bookscan and Borders bestselling author. Tina enjoys family, friends, researching projects, and a good glass of wine when she's not on deadline. She's hoping to go through her classic movie collection in January, reorganize some closets, and plot a new book. A COWBOY FROM CHRISTMAS PAST is her latest release. You can find out more about Tina at www.tinaleonard.com.