Standing in a field with my daughter nodding off against my shoulder, the silhouette of my parents’ house black against the moon-washed sky, I wonder how much I’ll end up missing this place. We spent the weekend going through boxes and files, putting old files into new boxes and the contents of old boxes into new files. The chatter of voices only broken by a rogue sneeze as dust danced near irritable noses.
I'm not the most sentimental person, but I grew up in this house and now, as we start to pack it up, it appears to be tugging on something inside me.
Houses are strange and impressive. As architects we overthink it—or maybe trivialize it. We design clean, perfect boxes with white walls and sharp corners, wifi locks and double pane windows, this is modern safety and comfort. But everyday people move into blank boxes, with drafty windows, and squeaky doors. We fill them with every kind of complicated memory and messy emotion imaginable; the longer we stay and the tighter the quarters the more those intangible feelings saturate the house, and the more the house gives back true safety and comfort.
I don't know what it will be like in six months. That seems to be my mom's timeline for moving and I imagine we'll be down most weekends until then, moving furniture and sorting papers. But as we pack up the final boxes and drive off for the final time, I do wonder what happens to everything else. Does the next family inherit a solid dose of comfort, does it somehow tag along with us, or does it just float away like dust dancing towards someone else's scratchy nose?
