Too Loved to Leave

As I said a while back, we are building a house. It will be a sacred place when we’re done. The number of times this place has ministered to me is already enough for sainthood. We don’t normally name homes, but for this one, we are aiming high. Mocking birds grace its trees and roof peaks. The mocker is – in my mind – unspeakably beautiful: Saint Mocking Bird. Maybe this house, when it’s a home, will be a mocking bird for us – unspeakably beautiful.

Here’s the thing I love about the house right now while it’s under construction. During the day there are ten, fifteen people here buzzing around applying their expertise. Later in the evening after they have all left, Debra and I come here and savor the forward progress. Beau comes too. He savors the cedar elm leaves of two big ones we had to cut down earlier this year. (Their offspring now shoot up from their stumps and Beau daintily eats their leaves….we don’t know why.) But on some of the best nights, I savor progress and then I sit down on the back porch and absorb life for a few minutes.

Man. Those are nice nights. Right now is one of them: the sky is still overhung with clouds from last night’s impressive storm, there is distant thunder and lightning coming this way, the rain is just now crackling as it pops on the live oak leaves, Beau, who is actually already Saint Beau, is beside me stone-cold chillin’ on the floor--tummy full of cedar elm leaves, I am wearing a new hat I like, Ryan Adams’ newest album is good, it’s playing, he’s coming to do an ACL Taping, and I got tickets. This is a nice night.

Food coma.

Deb and I have talked about this house for hours and hours. We have discussed its appointments and layout. We have studied, recorded, and tracked minutiae. We have met with architects (the wonderful Clayton and Little). And we have gotten to know our Super Supervisor “Nick” well-enough to both take and give good advice at the right times.

When this home is done and everything from the fireballs to the framer-built AV rack says “Debra and Wade Gillham”, we’re gonna have a freakin’ party. We have been planning a house for hosting people we love for most of our marriage. (That’s almost 20 years!) We’re gonna feed our bellies. We’re gonna converse and drink a bit. We’re gonna swim some in the pool (Yeehaw! We got a pool!). And we’re gonna converse-a-drink a bit more. And then we’re gonna plant our bums in front of a fire and conversadrink a wee bit more on top of that. We may even dance on a table. Whew. That’ll be a good night…

… And then morning will come with clean-up duties and bleary-eyed coffee requirements. I like the morning afters. Anyway….back to the story.

When we moved from our old house we left a tree that was everything a tree should be. It was big. It had a cool cast-iron cross inexplicably nailed to its side and partially grown over with bark. It had long, flexible arms with thirty-foot dad-hung rope swings beckoning over green grass and worn brown spots. It had a canopy that formed a huge cake of leaves. It was our tree. We named her Octopus Oak. Leaving her behind after ten years summoned many a happy memory. We had tears that day and since.

But in our new house, where now the wind is just barely making noise as it rustles through the branches and the rain is still crackling away, our new tree is holding court. Those cedar elms we cut down? We cut those down so our new tree could grow. Today she grows only to the north and west with her tresses. She gazes into a south easterly wind and her green locks are blown back to the north and west. I need to name her. What fits? Shiloh? Treeleign? Jane? …still wondering what will stick. There is a front runner. And we are sure we will come up with something perfect. But we know that this tree is going to be with us a long, long time. She is too loved to leave.