Sunday, August 9, 1998

The place is a mess, and family's on the way

By Sharon Randall

After a month away, I came home to what my mother would call a godawful mess.

Nothing had happened in my absence. The house was a mess when I left it, had been for months, maybe even years.

I knew that, of course. I could see. I wasn't blind or drugged, I swear. But I had seen it only peripherally, the way you look at something when you don't want to look at it.

Say you're in a restaurant and there's this couple at the next table whisper-fighting. You don't stare. Staring is rude. You're aware of the unpleasantness, but you don't focus on it. You go on about your business, eating and talking as if the couple and their trouble didn't exist -- while in the corner of your eye, you watch them closely enough to read their lips.

You've never done that? Well, next time we're in the same restaurant, feel free to watch me watching you.

Anyhow, about the house. I'd been aware for some time that it was going to seed, but I hadn't focused on it. The only things I saw clearly were my husband and his illness.

For a while, after he died, I stopped looking entirely, even peripherally, at such things as houses and lawns, people and their problems. Basically, I didn't care.

There's a lot to be said for not caring -- especially for someone who's spent her life caring a little too much, maybe, about too many things.

Not caring was fun. Easy. And cheap. Dirty ceilings, peeling wallpaper and enough weeds to cover Texas didn't bother me at all. And if they bothered you, I didn't want to hear about it because, remember, I didn't care.

Suddenly caring

I left town for a while and when I got back, I couldn't believe my eyes. The mess was just as I had left it. Nothing had changed but me.

"God help me," I said, "I care."

So I hired myself a painter and ripped things apart, floor to ceiling, upstairs and down.

Then my brother called. He and his family were flying out to see me. Next weekend.

"What?" I said. "No, I didn't forget. It's just I, uh, can't wait to see you."

I found the painter in my guest room hip-deep in a soggy pile of stripped wallpaper.

"If you can finish by Friday," I said, "I'll write the kids out of my will and leave the place to you."

Then heading out to order carpet, buy a bed and get the cat dipped for fleas, I added, "If that gardening service calls back, tell them to come quick and bring some Agent Orange and I'll give them the pink slip to my car."

Caring is hard. Especially on a painter. When I ask how it's going, he just rolls his eyes and keeps painting. I like that about him a lot.

The gardening service buzzed the yard like a swarm of smiling locusts but didn't want my car, so I gave them a check instead. The place hasn't looked this good since we bought it 30 years ago.

I can't wait for my brother and his family to see it. They were here six months ago for my husband's memorial service, but the place has changed a lot since then. As have I.

They're not coming to see the house, of course. They're coming to see me. OK, me and California. They won't care if things are a mess or not.

But I will.

Sharon Randall is a winner of the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors and the Best of the West commentary awards.