A Memoir of Housing (Part 1)

Reflecting on 2018 got me thinking about my married life in terms of the spaces we've lived in. And then I started typing.

We had smallish condo in Cambridge when Madeline arrived in the world. The yellow building on Putnam. We cleverly selected the third floor of a three-floor building with no elevator. Having never previously attempted to simultaneously bring groceries and children up three flights of stairs we knew we'd made the right choice. And taking out the garbage down the narrow, creaky back steps and through the "Silence of the Lambs" basement was a cheerful highlight.

On the other hand, hearing the cheers from Fenway while watching the World Series in our living room was magical. We painted the nursery the lightest shade of pink visible to the human eye. My conservative estimate is that I sang "Give, Said the Little Stream" approximately 18 million times in that nursery.

The kitchen overheard many arguments as Katie and I figured out how to be married. The neighbors might have heard a few as well. I learned that Katie doesn't yell. Rather, she makes her points with heightened emphasis.

That kitchen also hosted the young men of our church congregation every Thursday evening for about a year as we helped them with homework and college entrance exams. That kitchen saw the first steps of two children.

That kitchen heard me say to Katie, "That lump on Caleb's neck doesn't look right." And then we were in the hospital for two weeks. Sacred space.

After adding Caleb and Henry, we moved to a smallish, shabby gray house in Provo so Katie could rediscover the joy of living like a student, but now with three kids and after acclimating to having income. Especially appealing was the vintage heating system (think of "The Christmas Story") that doubled as the wall between the kitchen and living room. Imagine a helicopter taking off from a landing pad that is attached to a rickety old wooden roller coaster and that is the sound of this unique piece of heating history.

The sewage pipe broke somewhere under the front lawn and when we flushed the toilet, that which should have been flushed came up through the shower drain. So we got to stay in a hotel for a few days, which was special.

On the other hand, Caleb and I spent countless hours on the dull brown carpet in the front room playing a game I called "fumblerooskie" with a miniature BYU football. Henry spoke his first word in that dumpy living room: "football." No joke. That was his first word. His second word was "cookie." We raise them right.

The fateful decision to pass up an attractive job offer from Union Pacific on a gamble with Cambridge Associates was made during a rushed and stressful conversation while we were at our sleep-deprived worst, with that insane heater ushering in the apocalypse behind us, like it was trying to warn us. The gamble didn't pay off and I landed on the fall back plan...in Pakistan.