BEFORE THE COTTAGE
Growing up, creating a home was survival. When my parents were married, my mom created home, beautiful spaces and meals, to survive the peripheral realities and internal struggles. To make sure her children were safe from the many truths that lurked just around the corner. To make sure they had some place to run to. They split when I was 9, verging on 10. My mom got nothing in the divorce besides the kids. So, we moved. We had very little and landed in an apartment complex we fondly called Divorce Camp. As you can imagine, many of the tenants were enduring painful times and transitional periods.
The bills would get paid and we had about sixty cents for the rest of the month. How my mom created home, fed her kids, or made anything happen is really, truly a magic I’ll never understand. She found three main ingredients that were cheap and could make a wide variety of things, she cleverly curated home. Somehow, we had table settings and candles for each holiday. We had family meals and would talk about the ups and downs of our day. We shed a lot of tears, but we were safe to do so.
Safe base is something she fought for… truly fought for. There was a not so peaceful evening at Divorce Camp where my two younger brothers and I were in our room absolutely scream fighting about what we would watch on our small tv perched on the nightstand. This had been an issue once or twice before and it disturbed the home, the energy, the safety and love and relationships within it. I have this clear vision of her walking in, looking at us all, unplugging the TV and carrying it straight out to the dumpster. We were dumbfounded. What the hell was this woman doing? What do we do now? Our bedroom now had a common enemy… mom. Mom was supposed to settle this, declare a winner, and she did not even say a word. She did not come in and choose a child or a program, she did not guide us to a compromise, she quietly chose all three of us at the same time, she chose home, and this TV was a disruption and threat to it all. So, the TV had to go.
Chronologically, it makes sense to me that I learned a new skill in my free time now that I could not watch Friends or whatever three shows came in on TBS and bunny ears. A few months passed and it was my mom’s birthday. She worked late and I babysat the boys. My mom’s birthday is the day after Valentine’s Day and I was so excited to show her just how much I loved her by making her a heart shaped cake with lots of frosting, which is her favorite. I pulled the perfect golden brown, vanilla heart out of the oven and was delighted. This would be the best surprise. I let it cool and began to take it out of the pan. I carefully ran a butter knife along the edges and went to flip the cake over to finish cooling on the rack. How the cake got to the floor is an odd memory, it is a combination of a total black out and tragedy in slow motion. There it was… my 10 or 11 year old, perfect golden brown, vanilla heart scattered in crumbly pieces all over the floor. This moment of surprise that I had been anticipating all day was ruined. How would my mom ever know how much I loved her? There was no cake, no candles. And I realize I froze in the kitchen, staring at the floor, crying. My mom came home just a moment later and saw the slaughter of my simple hopes and dreams, my failure. I cried, and between each sob, a hiccupped explanation of what would have been. She gave me a hug and said, “It’s ok baby, I love it. Cake is cake.” And grabbed the frosting and some forks. We had floor cake for her birthday, and it was fucking delicious. And then in our home we were safe to try new things.
As one would imagine, this particular baker got to an age where she could no longer share a room with her two younger brothers. I had a few stints with my own bedroom but ultimately ended up sharing a room with my mom, we rented mine out to help pay the rent. A teenage girl and her mother sharing a bedroom is a recipe for disaster. Conflict is written in the stars. But home in confined or confusing spaces is my mom’s expertise. When I moved some things over, she made sure the room also felt like mine, it was equally ours and meant to be respected and safe. We had a bathroom with dual sinks and developed a morning ritual of getting ready together, laughing, bitching, and doing impressions that made it safe to be an awkward teenager when privacy was scarce.
Our room had a little in it but I do remember beautiful bedding. Cozy and chic. Fit for a teenager and a woman. And a rug, something to keep you from floating and ground you in the space. Nice and safe for all the becoming and growth that would happen for each individual that took habit there. And becoming was unavoidable for each of us. There were friends of all ages, sibling fights, heart break, hard homework, anger, dinner parties, laughter, goofiness, and immense story telling at this apartment for this family of four. My 16th birthday was at this apartment. I could have 16 friends over. It was stunning. Playing cards that added up to 16 at each place setting, antique crystal decorating the table and candelabra. Divorce Camp 2.0 held the party of the decade. Beauty is sneaky like that. And in that home we learned that we are far more than meets the eye.
There is no sarcasm when I say we moved out of Divorce Camp 2.0 in the dark cloak of night. Shit had gone down… that’s for another essay, for another time. We graduated from Divorce Camp to “beach shack apartment above a garage that you are definitely not supposed to live in full time.” Two small rooms, one bathroom, a living room that fit a couch and what was almost a kitchenette. And of course… A garage. We were not the only ones that lived there. A quiet but assertive family of cockroaches did as well. Yet, it was beautiful. Except for my brothers’ room… that was a rather consistent disaster. It was the tightest quarters the four of us had been in together and I would say if you asked any one of us, we would tell you we loved it, that it was home, that all our friends came there, that we threw dinners outside below twinkle lights and walked to the beach, that we strolled the entire town and had endless options, that we got into a lot of trouble but could always hide away at our beach shack. Sneaking out, first times, holidays, illnesses, car crashes, more heart break and more growth, so much life in this tiny, unassuming back house, tucked right off the street. And here we learned the immensity of what we could hold.
Condos and cottages followed- home is wherever she lands. Lessons patiently wait like the lady bugs on windowsills bringing the message of good luck in each place. My mom’s heart is in her design. It says, have a little piece of me… you are welcome here, you are safe.