Forgetting to Remember
Our lives right now are pretty scattered. 75% of our stuff is in Austin, but the rest, and arguably most important, parts of ourselves are at the new house. If home is where your heart is, then I can feel it beating under the forest branches, along the muddy paths, in the porch eaves.
We’ve stayed at the new house consistently for a week. This translates into some creative clothing options when I’m on the fourth day at the new house, am lacking a functioning washer and dryer, and too hunkered down to make the trip into Austin. I finally did manage to load into the car with a list of things to grab. The entire experience felt annoying. After so many years of planning this move, it’s frustrating to have the house built and still be suspended since we’re unable to fully move in (since it’s not complete for many reasons beyond our control, at this point).
I felt the waves of anger overtake my senses as they have for over a month now; the feeling that building was such a dreadful mistake, wishing again that we’d fallen for some other piece of dirt with a home already standing. I carried those dark thoughts with me all the way into Austin, as I parked the car in the drive, walked through the house, out the back door, and to the chicken coop to fill up their feeder. I grumbled about the “stupid” chickens whose existence is questionable since they haven’t laid an egg for months. But I checked the nestbox anyway, out of habit and optimism. And nestled there between some feathers and old straw were four new eggs. Each so imperfectly shaped and tinted varying shades of creamy olive, that they were, in fact, perfect. Little globes to remind me what that land’s all about and that there’s lots more to it than just the broken house. It was eggs like these, purchased at a farmer’s market back in 2008, that first started the discussion about suburban chickens, and chickens led to the discussion about life in the country, and that led to a Sunday afternoon drive. We’ve been feeling bruised and battered these past few months when realizations about the house and builder came to light. It’s comforting to know that solace still lurks at the edges of all this and is as close as the eggs in my own backyard.
