Home Again, Home Again

The primary benefit of the move from Los Angeles to the Washington, DC area is that it puts me within a couple of hours' drive of my parents, who aren't getting any younger even if they also aren't getting noticeably more mature. So when I found out last week that my Dad was having another surgery to remove another melanoma (the first was a little less than two years ago, the week before we moved here), this time I could go up and be with them. They didn't "need" me, but it was definitely more fun for all of us to go out drinking and dining in style in Philadelphia the night before than it was for them to hang out in their hotel room, and for me to be at home wondering if I should have gone. I may not be a good influence, but I can be a good listener. It went well, we had lunch, I made him sit down with an icepack, and I got on a train for two hours, rather than a plane for 5 1/2, to go home. Pretty cool, really.

Now I'm back home, waiting to go pick up my son from his fourth visit to a potential new school in three weeks. He hates this; almost as much as he hates being in his current school. I think we'll leave my feelings about the whole issue aside for now.

Is it possible to be homesick for someplace you've never lived? For the last two months I've had this unbelievable yearning to go to Scotland and/or southwest England; mainly to go walking on downs and highlands. It truly feels like homesickness; like if I could go and just be there for a while I'd be where I belonged, and I'd be refreshed. Yet I've never been to Scotland, never been to the Cotswolds. I've been to London, and to Wales, both of which I love passionately, but the rest of this is all some made up imagery in my head. And yet, it feels so real--and maybe the universe heard me this time.

My husband's business trip to Shanghai next week meant we had to cancel our President's Day weekend plans (bummer), and then he had a trip to London added right in front of the Shanghai trip (as an international relations major I am of course not at all envious of my husband's jet-setting career. nope, not me). So :12 days without him, four of which my son would be on vacation from school. What was I going to do with four days, no vacation plans, and a husband in London for the long weekend? Hey, wait a minute....

Yes. We're all going to London and I'm so excited I can't sit still. I haven't been there in ten years. It isn't a solitary trek across the moors to a cup of tea by the fire, but it's London, and I feel like I'm going hoooome.

What Am I Anyway

The problem with Facebook is that it keeps me from writing. My former teacher, the wonderful Amy Friedman, several years ago forbade us to "tell anybody your stories. For two months." That forced us to write them. We supposedly-blocked writers with nothing to say suddenly became prolific. Many of of us poignant, many of us brilliantly funny and poignant. Not me, incidentally. So far I can sometimes manage poignant (with a lot of personal bloodletting), and often funny in an ironic way that suits some but not all tastes, but not both at the same time. Until I really and truly quit whining, I think really and truly funny will continue to elude me, and maybe even then. Besides, write now, whining is my MO. (That's neither poignant nor funny, but apparently it's what I need to do right now. So I guess the best I can hope for in a literary sense is that someone hears their own suppressed whine in mine.) Facebook is great for short, snippy vents, and so I never have to write anything real. Or at least not anything real and personal.

The good thing about Facebook is that it does occasionally prompts me to say what I mean about something universal. It usually sneaks up as what I intend to be a quick response to something I find annoying, which gets too long, which I then have to turn into a note. I'll repost one of those in a couple of days, when I have created a little distance between it and the original posts on this blog. (And when I have looked it over to determine whether I was actually thinking, and not just judging, when I wrote it.) As I type, this still isn't live, and some of the emotions from a year ago are still things to which, to be honest, I'd prefer not to subject my husband and my family-in-law. All of them undoubtedly are and have been the strongest supporters of my writing aspirations and attempts. I'd like them to read some good stuff without necessarily back-tracking into a mire of my personal discontent. But that won't be today.

Ironically, it is when I feel most alienated and alone and unacceptable that I resort to this blog. The times when my feelings are too raw, or fundamental, to vent even on Facebook. Right now, what I need to do is to scream out my fury and existential pain at where I find myself--which is damned close to non-existent. Married to a wonderful man, mother to a miraculous soul of a son, and absolutely dying--physically, mentally and spiritually--more and more, not by the day but the hour, because neither of those miracles can change the fact that for five years or more I have been trapped in this life of trying--over, and over, and over again-- to ensure simple things like that we have a place to live, that that place is clean and liveable, and that our son has a school environment that is non-terrifying (goal one) and ultimately supports his growth and security as an intelligent, creative human being (we were there, briefly, now we're not again). These seem like basic things to me; preconditions to even babysteps toward a regained life of my own. And yet for as long as I can remember now, as soon as I get one piece in place, somebody knocks out literally all the others. And it's my job to make it work, because let's face it, I'm "it."

Somehow I missed the obvious facts that by (1) having a child, and (2) three years later giving up my careerand independence to stay home with him when he was having trouble, I forfeited my place in the world of people whose needs and schedules must be accommodated, and became instead someone whose entire work/purpose consists in accommodating others. I have no one to blame but myself. The logic is that once you quit your job outside the house, every job that is not part of your partners' paying job is your job. Since you no longer contribute to the family income that would otherwise pay for help with household administration, if you want to be home with your kid it sort of seems obvious that you need to pick up the tasks that the family can no longer afford to pay someone else to do. Or maybe it could, but since you are home anyway, it seems sort of a waste to pay someone else to do them. You then get to be grateful for any "help" that your spouse gives you with "your" job. And make no mistake: I am grateful, very. My truly wonderful spouse DOES help, much, much more than the spouses of just about any stay-at-home-mom I know. The problem is that I never in a million years wanted to be a SAHM, never dreamed that household administration would ever be MY work. It's not my skill set, let alone my calling. Other things, like research, and analysis, and policy, are. The fact that I spent the first three weeks of this last month repeatedly having to describe myself in writing on school applications as a "homemaker" made me want to wipe myself off the face of the earth.

There are many amazing women for whom home and early childhood development and community are a calling; they manage their homes and their children with a grace, calm, organization and mindfulness that is awe-inspiring. I have come to appreciate in the last eight years with my son that our society simply could not run without these women and their capable, intelligent, strategic, dedicated work for their kids, their schools and their communities. But as much as I have tried, and as much as I have treasured opportunities to dig in and help the schools and families in our communities over the years, at heart, that is not MY work. I just wanted to be a good mother, and to do MY job. Ultimately, it turned out that for a while, I could not do both of those things because my son needed a full time mom at home. That seemed like maybe the best thing for both of us then, as I was weary of the hypocrisy of trying to be a lawyer who was advised not to "talk too much about my son" for fear that people wouldn't give me the best work if I was perceived as being human. Being available to take my son to playdates and to help him bridge to other kids--and to their parents and not their nannies- was what was needed, and it was only for a couple of years, anyway, until he got comfortable socially, and into a school that we knew would work for him. What I didn't realize was that I would necessarily become, the minute I lost my economic power to delegate, the nanny, teacher, social secretary, personal secretary, handyman, building superintendent, project manager, laundress, cook, janitor, community liaison, educational consultant and occupational therapist for our family and child, quickly followed by relocation agent, travel agent, real estate agent, consultant, tutor, physical therapist, child psychologist, homesick child's whipping boy and ultimately resident house-bound resentful fat bitch. I could even live with the task of single-handedly digging myself out of this hole and getting my family to the point where things are in place "enough" to allow me to do some work that actually involves both hemispheres of my brain in the same day, if from one six month period to the next the house, "the job" that brought us here, the school, the goal for any of them, or even the damned car, could stay essentially in the same mode that I spent the previous six months (any previous six months you want to name) trying to make work.

Oy. Maybe I should stick to Facebook. At least it requires something more interesting than self-pity. I need a diary, or this blog will never, ever go live. Apparently it's not just the emotions of last spring, but those of today this winter that I'd prefer to put somewhere else. Maybe that's why I keep having vivid dreams about running away to croft in Scotland--what better place to tuck all of this far out of sight. And maybe slowly scatter it to the ducks and bogs til it dissipates and I become recognizable to myself again.

Sleeping Buddha Poster from Zazzle.com

Sleeping Buddha Poster from Zazzle.com

Our Song--Matthew Sweet's "Waiting"

So I'm still waiting for some kind of official notice that we really and truly have a loan, and that we therefore will really and truly have a house that we have a right to call our own next week. Supposedly next Monday. So far all I have is what my husband says the broker's assistant says the bank says, which is apparently "yes." Not exactly sure when, but yes. Don't get me wrong. In my book that means the house is moving closer, rather than farther away like it was three days ago. But as a lawyer (by training if not by current practice, or even current mindset), all this hearsay doesn't really do it for me. So I'm still waiting for confirmation and a little more peace of mind. The song "Sitting Here in Limbo" keeps running through my mind. But then what came through much more clearly, and so much more sweetly, was my husband's and my "our song": Waiting by Matthew Sweet.

I've had a bunch of relationships in my day, several of them very sweet and/or committed, but most of them a total nightmare even to remember. The latter largely because I never knew how to value myself and so kept picking men who didn't, either. John, my beloved spouse, is emblematic of the traditional complaint that girls always fall for assholes instead of the guys who can really love us for who we are. My long road to John is a story for another day, but suffice it to say he was the nicest of nice guys, and therefor scared the hell out of me. I couldn't be responsible for that! But he knew what he wanted, and he never changed his mind in the course of the eight years it took us to come together--even if he would have liked to, and frequently had to separate himself from me for years at a time until I figured it out. Somewhere in there, he introduced me to Matthew Sweet's album, "Girlfriend." "Girlfriend" itself is a great, rocking song. Wonderful to sing at the top of your lungs riding along the beach with the top down or the windows open, or both. But "Waiting" --oh. My heart lifts and twists at the same time. Sweet's voice is clear and pure on this one. And the voice and the music and the lyrics are all so full of that early summer of gentle longing, a yearning but with a feeling that there is real hope that this dream will come true. When I hear it I feel that exquisite sensation of just beginning to suspect that the one you love might actually love you back. It hasn't happened yet for sure, but you think it's about to, and the waiting is worth it. In fact, the waiting makes it better. Its maybe even its own separate form of pleasure. I've never really had an "our song" with anyone else. I'm not even sure that John thinks of it exactly that way, but I know he associates it inextricably with me, and I with him, and that it belongs to us.

It makes me smile to think of that song. I think I'll go play it. And you won't believe this, but honest to God, when I started writing this I didn't think that the song had any parallels to the house other than the title. But maybe it does. That would be cool.

I'll leave you with pictures of the yard today, and picture of the boxes I'm tackling downstairs. You couldn't see the back door before, so there's some progress.

Doing the Math, and My New Favorite Bank

Note to self: one day plus four hours is 28 hours, not 32. So it was at 32 hours and about ten minutes (not 36) that John called to say that Lender Number Two "said yes." He says it's a done deal, and that we will likely close next Monday, maybe Tuesday. Enormous relief all around. But since I haven't seen anything in writing from anybody yet, I have only exhaled about halfway. I'm like that. When it actually happens, I will shout to the rooftops the name of this paragon of banking. In the meantime I will note that our mortgage broker/relocation lender is nearly as p-o'd at "BOSA" as we are. And, interestingly, yesterday morning BOSA pulled all of the credit lines of its "Countywise" mortgage customers, claiming financial difficulties. So it seems that perhaps if our loan sale had been in front of any other bank but this one, the fact that our 2008 tax return was filed late might have been no biggy, rather than potential financial meltdown.

I do remember that I said I'd feel silly for all this gloom and doom and angst if Lender Number Two said yes yesterday. And I do. Eight days of worry, and I fall apart and start spilling my guts (and sort-of online, no less, even if this still isn't live) on day two. But the anxiety and anger had to go somewhere, and infinitely better that it went here than on my sweet, relieved husband, or on our hardworking mortgage broker. John and I came through it as a team, provided one discounts my literary incontinence, and the broker got us this new loan so fast, she says, because she felt she owed it to us for how nice and constructive we were when things went bad. Thank John for that. I was polite, but I was not-so-subtly playing bad cop to John's good with both the broker and our incredibly patient, calm and cooperative sellers--for whom the lack of loan was nearly as bad a fact as it was for us.

And "the lesson" is not so illusory after all. We aren't entitled to this just because we've experienced loss. We were foolish and self-indulgent and it nearly cost us hugely. We're lucky--knocking on wood--and we won't forget it. And we won't forget that as long as we hang together, everything else is gravy. Given that this started to be a blog about decorating a new house, I suspect I'll be reminding myself of that frequently as I repeatedly defer buying "the" perfect rug for the living room (it really is...!) until we get our financial house in order and have some savings again.

My stomach still hasn't unclenched. I think it's going to take keys in hand, maybe even my son tucked into his bed in his "for keeps" room, to do that. That's probably okay. I need to lose some weight anyway.

The Here and Now

No word yet from Lender Number Two. In fact, no word yet from our mortgage broker or her colleague. For, let's see--going on 32 hours now. We put together our letters explaining why our 2008 tax filing was so late (in sum: documents still in boxes, our bank --we'll call them BOSA--holding up our safe deposit box in LA, and, since we didn't owe but rather had a sizable refund coming we just plain didn't focus as soon as we should have on getting it together), and why we missed mortgage payments on the ski condo we ecstatically bought three weeks before the relocation was announced. On that one, something interesting: we figured that when our mortgage lender, we'll call them Countywise, was acquired by BOSA, they messed up our billing the first month. Correct: we have no statement for that month. We couldn't figure out how we managed to miss another payment later on, though, and figured we must have somehow missed a bill in the course of the move. Not so correct. On reviewing all of our records and BOSAs transcripts of the loan, it turns out BOSA adopts a billing system pretty much designed to result in default if you miss a payment.

In our case, our payment was due on the 5th of the month. BOSA sent its statement on the 2nd of month one --and on the 28th! of month two. So we'd get a statement either day before or on the day that our payment was due, and the next statement nearly TWO MONTHS later! No 15 or 30 days past due notice if you miss a payment: your next statement comes a day or two before you are in 60 day default. In our case, our attempts to set up automatic payments through our bank (would you believe, also BOSA?) had failed, but we didn't know that. We got a statement on July 2 that we thought we paid online. Then we moved to Virginia. The very next statement was dated August 28--so it came while we were on vacation in the first week of September. When we got back after Labor Day, we picked up a stack of mail at the post office that contained not only the first statement that showed a missed payment, but a notice of default and acceleration. Credit rating trashed. Thank you so very much, BOSA, our bank of 20 years.

Oh--did I mention the name of Lender Number One who backed out on our loan three days before closing last week? Why, yes, yes it was BOSA. Really hope Lender Number Two says yes so we can move our accounts there immediately--otherwise we may have to spend a week thinking about where to put the money we're definitely taking out of BOSA.

OK--so enough of anger, spite and self-justification. The fact remains that we can only blame BOSA/Countywise for the fact that they trashed our credit rating and made our loan rate higher, and even then we can really only partially blame them. We missed the payments; they set up the system to make that likely, but not necessarily inevitable. We're in this position of having NO loan (rather than just an overpriced one) not because of mortgage payments, but because we didn't get our act together and file our tax return anywhere close to the deadline. A completely self-inflicted wound. Lender Number Two may be willing to close without the tax transcript that won't be available for a month if our explanations are clear enough. We've explained. They'll read, they'll decide. Nothing to do now but wait.

So, how to wait productively and without driving my friends crazy? (Going on 33 hours of silence now.) I should say up front that the laundry is done and I can't bring myself to cook, because my stomach still hurts and because I don't like being a housewife to begin with and it isn't improving my mood one bit. So what to do that helps somehow? Writing, obviously, a given whether it helps anybody or not.

Well, forward planning/design daydreaming/furniture shopping on Craigslist is right out. Can't imagine tempting fate any further with that stuff. Rehashing is done and, reading it over, boring as well as unproductive. So, what is there to do in the here and now, that acknowledges the lesson from yesterday that it's us and not the house that counts in the end? One, go out on the deck and admire the backyard. It's gorgeous at the rental house right now--the trees have fully leafed and what was a bunch of gray sticks in the air three weeks ago is a complete canopy of green. Azaleas are busting out all over in pink and fuchsia and red and white, and something pale lavender that is maybe rhododendron? Beautiful, sunny, temperate spring day. Ah.

Two, what if anything can I do to make sure that nothing further goes wrong? Pay bills. Check. Three, go through all the crap downstairs and sort it for sale, donation, trash and "actually to be moved with us whenever and wherever that may be." Doesn't count as planning for moving to THE house, because the downstairs is overwhelmed with junk we move to get to stuff we need, and at the very least this has to be done before our lease here is up, house or no house. Sounds mindless and time-consuming. In fact, sounds perfect.

Okay. Three and a half hours of sorting and I feel like I've done something worthwhile for our current comfort (more space), for society (lots of donations and recycling), and for whatever comes next (five boxes eliminated, only 24 more to sort). I can wait; I now have a mission. I'm so lame, and I'm such a liar. 36 hours? Can that possibly not be bad news?

I'm Sure There's a Lesson Here

Just for the record, yesterday's post really wasn't supposed to be so melodramatic. My husband came in to bed just as I was starting a post, and I found that I really didn't want him to see that I was blogging about this--even if not for publication. I'm trying hard not to hurt him with anger and recriminations and be a team player and loving partner and all that while we try to figure out what to do about this mess. I've SAID I'm angry, which is true, but I've also said that it will be okay. Which is true about us, ultimately, but I am honestly not at all sure that it is true about the house or our finances. And if those things wind up not being okay, it is going to take a lot more work and probably counselling (marital and financial) to ensure that our family stays okay.

And it occurs to me over and over again that I'm going to feel pretty damned silly if the lender says "okay" tomorrow and gives us a loan. What does it mean about me that, if the loan comes through, all of this upset and sense of doom and inevitability will go away, and suddenly everything will be great and all our decisions perfectly justified? Surely if there is a lesson to be learned if it all goes wrong, the lesson should still be thee if it only nearly goes wrong but ultimately comes right? And if not, is that because the "lesson" is only a morbid figment of my imagination (more than possible given my particular psyche), or because we (and everybody) so want to believe that being lucky means the same thing as having done right?

Of course, the first lender, the one that was supposed to give us a loan last week, did not say "okay." They said "no." And although John was pleased to hear that this second lender was willing to look at the loan, they actually had MORE things they wanted explained than the first lender did. So I doubt they'll say yes. And if they don't, every other scenario costs us considerable delay and either (a) a lot more money, or (b) literally ALL of our money. And I can't shake the feeling that God, or the universe, strongly felt that we needed a reminder that we were never entitled to anything, and wants us to really consider just how much we are willing to sacrifice for the symbolism of "Safety, warmth, security" of this house. A question that's been nagging at me ever since we decided to buy this perfect house, for a LOT more money than we had ever intended, and a lot more than we would have had to pay for a "very nice" house.

Also for the record, this blog was never supposed to be about whining about how my life is going to be ruined if I can't get a loan to buy the ridiculously expensive house in the D.C. area that we committed to buy while we were grieving over the loss of our ridiculously beautifully situated (if tiny and badly outdated and under-maintained) '50s rancher near the Pacific Ocean. It was supposed to be about the transformation we had worked on our old house, and its tiny lawn with the huge view, before we had to leave it; and about the very different house we're moving to and how it and the design changes we made to it reflects a different set of social and emotional needs; and what became essential even for a very short time to do to our rental house so we could feel at home here while we waited for the new "real" home; and all the things I'm finding on Craigslist and at flea markets to furnish the new house because we've spent all our money on built-ins and porches; and what geography and landscape and architecture and community all mean for identity, and how what we need from our homes can change based on all of that--and maybe even how we integrate ourselves into our new surroundings first by making our mark on our homes. But right now it seems absurd to talk about decorating this new house, and a bit maudlin to be looking back at our first house. Right now, it seems, I need to be focusing on the essentials. Which, it occurs to me, is not the same thing is obsessing about the current problem.

And so I think maybe the lesson here is that we convinced ourselves that our emotional needs are greater than they are, and that they could only be met by having this perfect house that would somehow take care of us. When in fact, reality consists in the lesson that we learned seven and a half years ago, and perhaps--incredibly-- managed to lose sight of: John and I, and now Nathan, can endure anything, live or be anywhere, as long as we have each other. Conversely, without that, no shelter--no matter how well proportioned, well-heated or well-lit--will ever console us. So I guess that's really why I didn't want John to see the blog yet. He's infinitely more necessary to me than a house.