What makes a place home?

I am happy to report I’m starting to feel more settled in my new apartment. My sister texted me to ask if I felt “happy.” She put it in quotation marks, as if it is an unreachable state, something to be aspired to but never attained, like a dress size zero. I wrote back that I felt content. No quotation marks.

It sure is nice to be reunited with my stuff, even if it is in boxes, bins, and bags. Time to get organized! Over the past couple weeks, I’ve spent a chunk of money on shelving of different types. A four-shelf chrome wire rack now organizes all my travel gear behind the door and provides a great place to hang my television antenna. (So far the only broadcast channel I can’t get is CBS.) Another smaller wire rack now holds Mom’s dinky senior-friendly microwave, although I haven’t used the appliance yet. In fact, after living without a microwave for the past four months, I’m not sure I really need one. Maybe when winter comes, if there is such a season here, I will find it useful for heating my coffee.

Most of my home furnishing expenditures have been on wood. I love wood. Using cheap store-bought, assembly-required fake wood laminated cubes and some wood planks, I built a colossal writing desk with overhead shelves to hold all the paper goods I insisted on bringing with me to Tucson. (Ridiculous use of cargo space, but whatever, it’s done now.) I decorated the top shelf with a display of paintings, framed photos, and ceramic creations made by a former high school art teacher, long deceased, bequeathed to me in a roundabout fashion and carefully packed for the trip across the desert.

This studio apartment has a built-in divider separating one large room into two smaller spaces. The “bedroom” area is somewhat larger than the “living room” area. There is one door and one window. The window is large, but screened, so the view onto the parking area is gray and indistinct. However, passersby can see me sitting at the window staring out at them. I know this because my next door neighbor to the east waved at me as she walked by with her little terrier, returning from the dog poop area. That was nice. That she takes her dog to poop in the designated pooping place, I mean, instead of letting it poop anywhere. Also, nice that she waved. I waved back, of course.

The front room is for cooking, eating, and watching TV. The back room is the nerve center, the inner sanctum, the working space. It’s also the sleeping area, but I consider the bed to be an afterthought. The main focus in this area is productivity. There are no windows in this area, which means there are long stretches of blank wall space, perfect for setting up long work tables. There’s no light back here, either. It’s dark, which is why I’m calling my new home the Bat Cave. However, there are plenty of electrical outlets and no shortage of lighting devices.

Abundance! I now have two large work surfaces. The one to my left is for my desktop computer, speakers, and printer. Right now, that computer is not connected to the internet, which means it functions as a really big jukebox.

This new desk is designated for writing and artmaking. Sitting here, I feel at home. My laptop fits perfectly. I have my gizmos and knick-knacks holding my office supplies at my fingertips. Directly in front of me is a photo of my mother from late last summer, before we moved her from the retirement home to the care home. She’s smiling, illuminated by the setting sun, clearly happy to see me. She needs a haircut. I photographed her through the window from my vantage point in the bushes outside her room. Covid was a thing we thought we could outlast, back then.

I sometimes divide my memories into before and after. Before the death of Eddie. Before Covid. Before we moved Mom into the care home. Before she died. Before I moved to Tucson. These milestone moments are ledges on which my brain gets caught as I mentally freefall into the future. It’s easier to look back, I suppose, than it is to imagine something that doesn’t exist yet. Although, my memory being what it is, the past seems as murky as the future.

Speaking of murky, before I forget, let me update you on the story of Bill, my eighty-two-year-old friend at the trailer park. I called him on Friday night and told him I was coming over and wanted to return his CDs and go for a bike ride if he felt like it. He was amenable, so I drove over as the sun was setting. He invited me inside. I politely refused; I said I was allergic to fragrances, which is the truth. I didn’t mention the overpowering stench of his aftershave, recognizable from several feet away, outdoors.

Soon we were riding along the park roads. At his request, I was riding to his right so he could hear me out of his good ear. As usual, the sunset was spectacular. Every sunset in the desert is spectacular. Ho hum.

“I owe you an apology,” Bill said. “When I asked you for a hug, it wasn’t meant to be a romantic hug. We do a lot of hugging in my family, that’s all it was.”

I thanked him for the apology and said my family didn’t do much hugging. I told him he didn’t do anything wrong, that I took no offense, and that I was glad we were friends.

When we returned to his trailer, he said, “I have something for you.” I waited outside under his carport, watching rabbits gallop across the white rock lawn. Pretty soon, Bill came out carrying a large black plastic trash bag.

“My wife bought this for the hallway,” he said. “It’s a rug. She decided she didn’t like it after all, she said it was too much.” I’m guessing the rug has been in a closet for a while. I wondered what he was feeling as he jettisoned his dead wife’s possessions. I didn’t ask. He opened the bag to show me the corner of a low-pile Persian-style rug in earthy colors, mostly rusty red.

“That’s lovely,” I said truthfully.

Now I have an attractive runner rug in my work space. Not that I needed a runner rug, but I like the colors, and it really spruces up the place. When I walk across it, I think of Bill and wish him well. I also think of his wife. Now her legacy will live on in my interior design and color scheme. Good thing I got the rug before I make a trip to the IKEA in Tempe next week.

I think I mentioned I checked the mailbox here at the apartment. It was crammed full of mail, most of it destined for recycling. Some of it needed to be returned to sender, for example, a check from the U.S. Treasury for $300 for the child tax credit payment. I sorted through all the personal mail and counted mail addressed to seven different people. I am not sure if they all lived here at the same time, but I’m guessing a few did. Judging by the number of debt collection notices in the stack, I’m guessing the tenants had made a strategic decision to stop checking their mailbox. Who needs the aggravation, right? Elizabeth H., Danielle B., Christian O., Delores L., Sage A., Rachel G., and Carolina C., I hope you all will find peaceful resolutions with your creditors. Carolina, I would gladly forward you the two issues of Cosmopolitan you missed; however, the stench of the perfume inserts has proved to be too much for my sinuses.

Mostly, this apartment is great. I am continually amazed at how clean and dry everything is. I see and smell no toxic mold. There’s more than enough room for me and my stuff. The water is hot and plentiful. It’s a very civilized place to spend the next year while I figure out whether I should stay or go.

The main problem is flies. House flies come in under the edges of the window screen. No worries. Big flies are easy to shoot down with alcohol. This morning I taped up the edges of the screen with black duct tape, so I expect to see fewer house flies soon. It’s the no-see-ums that are the real problem. I am blotchy with red bites on my hands, arms, and legs. The females are tiny invisible nasty biters, attracted by carbon dioxide, intent on slicing my skin and suctioning my blood so they can perpetuate their abominable species. I can hear them whine sometimes, if they are near my ear, but I rarely see them. They are the epitome of stealth: fast, small, almost silent, and dangerous. I’m setting out cups of apple cider vinegar, hoping to entice them to reveal themselves, and I’ve got fans blowing in hopes of disrupting their flight paths as they are homing in on my breath. I don’t know if a mosquito net would be a tight enough weave to protect my exposed skin while I’m sleeping. I would gladly take mosquitoes any day. Calamine lotion is on my shopping list.

In addition to the annoying indoor neighbors, I have occasional moments of frustration with human neighbors who like to crank up the bass on their music devices. There is something about that visceral vibration that triggers my misophonia. Luckily, the neighbors with massive car stereos don’t hang out in their cars for hours on end—it’s still too hot. I can hear the booming receding into the distance as they navigate the speed bumps on their way out of the parking lot in their sporty loud cars.

The next-door neighbor to my west probably doesn’t realize how high the bass level is on her stereo. In fact, I can’t actually hear her music. I have no idea if she is playing country or rap or Bandera music. Only the bass comes pounding through the wall. I have imagined knocking on her door and asking her to turn the bass down. I’m pretty sure she speaks English. However, the conversation that might follow is more than I want to pursue. I just don’t have the energy to explain my request. It’s less social pressure to just endure. I find relief by passive aggressively bouncing a rubber ball off the wall we share. She can’t hear it, but it lowers my blood pressure a little. My final remedy is earplugs, jammed deep.

Oh, the last thing. I still have no internet here, and I don’t expect to get connected until mid-October. I’m paying extra to my cellphone provider to use my phone as a hotspot, and I’m using the wi-fi at the library for tasks that don’t require a secure connection. I go back to the trailer to do video meetings. It’s inconvenient, but not impossible. However, I’ll be glad to get back online from the comfort and privacy and security of my own space. Once I get internet access here, I think I might be able to call this place home.

On someone else's memory lane

My new friend Bill at the trailer park called me on the phone. “I have something to show you. Come over sometime. But call first, okay, unless you want to scrub my back in the shower.”

Bill is eighty-two years old. I’ve learned when socializing with old folks, it’s best not to lollygag. They could die before you get around to showing up. Case in point, Bill’s wife Linda died in her sleep. Imagine waking up next to that. Anyway, if you promise to do something for an old person, and you are serious about it, do not delay.

On the day Bill called, I was at the housesit trailer cleaning up the place in anticipation of the return of the homeowner. I wanted to leave the place spic and span, whatever that means, you know, pack it in, pack it out, leave no trace. I don’t want them to realize I slept on my foam rubber mattress on the floor for four months because my back does not appreciate memory foam. I was quite comfortable, thanks for asking. I regret nothing. I consider my four months living out of boxes and bags and sleeping semi-rough to be good preparation for living in my car, should that moment ever come.

After the sun went down, I hauled the bike out of the back of my car and rode over to the clubhouse to mail some letters back to their senders. I’ll tell you the story of those letters some other time, if I remember. Here, I’ll just say that I finally got around to checking the mailbox at my new apartment. That box holds a lot of mail.

From the clubhouse, I called Walt and told him I was around if he wanted me to come over. “I can be there in two minutes.”

Two minutes later, I wobbled around the curve and found him waiting for me on his back porch, delighted to see me. “You look like you are riding more smoothly,” he said.

“Less wobbly,” I agreed. I propped the bike on its kickstand and followed him into the kitchen.

“I have something for you,” he said. He handed me a 5 x 7 color photo of me sitting on his wife’s bike in his driveway. Behind me is a tall block wall and beyond that are the tops of cactuses and trees. Starbucks is just out of view. I am wearing black pants, a white jacket, and my straw hat—my bike-riding uniform. I am smiling self-consciously at the camera. I always prefer to be the one taking the picture.

“Thanks, Bill,” I said with appropriate appreciation and enthusiasm. I assumed he had a photo printer stashed away in the bowels of his trailer, excuse me, mobile home. In one of our conversations, I referred to the homes in the park as trailers. “Trailers have hitches,” Bill had said. “These are mobile homes.”

Bill invited me into the living room. It looked the same as I remembered—altar for Linda’s ashes, comfy seating, baseball game on the big screen television. “Remember those shows I was telling you about? I have them on DVD.” Bill pulled an enormous black zippered disk holder from a cabinet. There must have been three hundred CDs in the thing. He flipped through the sections. “The truth about the war,” he said, meaning Viet Nam. “The truth about Watergate. The truth about the environment.” Most of the DVDs were labeled with the word “Frontline.”

Finally he found the disks he sought. I sat on the marshmallowy loveseat while he queued up a DVD. He stood in front of the big screen, a tall bony man with skinny legs, a slight pot belly, square shoulders, and no neck, pointing the remote at the DVD player, fast-forwarding until he got to the right part. “Here we go,” he said, grinning like an adolescent through his crooked overbite.

The video quality was poor. Someone had set a stationary camera on a table near the open area that served as a stage. In the background, people could be seen moving through a hallway to and from the restrooms. The audio was scratchy, and the images were pixelated, but I got the gist. It was a home movie, amateur documentation of a holiday event of the kind you hope you never have to see again. Bad enough you had to live through it once. Not for Bill. Bill clearly loved reliving his time in the limelight.

It was a holiday-themed party at the clubhouse at the trailer park. MoHo park, excuse me. The year was 2010. A huskier, more limber Bill came onto the stage, recognizable by his overbite and square no-neck shoulders. He was dressed in garish printed pajama pants and a snowman shirt. On his head was a wig made of long stringy black hair. He was joined by three other oddly dressed people. Two women wore tie-dyed t-shirts and the otherman man in the group wore a red plaid sport jacket that looked like it was made from a quilt. This guy introduced the group as the Grandpas and Grandmas. They proceed to lipsync to songs from the 50s and 60s, including Monday Monday, an homage to the Mamas and the Papas. Present-day Bill giggled as he watched his younger self performing. I did my best to be appreciative, although I kept an eye on the clock. It was growing dark outside and I still had to ride the bike back to my car.

“Wait, I have one more to show you,” Bill said, switching out the DVD for another. “This one is a little longer.” I settled back on the loveseat, telling myself if there is a heaven, I’ll have something nice waiting for me there, like maybe some ten percent off coupons to IKEA.

The second event was another holiday party, in the same clubhouse room, three years later. In 2013, Bill looked about the same, wearing the same ridiculous snowman shirt. His associates this year were two women (neither of which was Bill’s wife) and and a younger man. Of course, this is a fifty-five and older mobile home park, so nobody was all that young. I can hardly believe I qualify to live in this place, but whatever.

I was interested to see Bill’s wife on the video. Linda was a short, small-boned woman with narrow hips and heavy breasts. Her gray bubble of hair did not move as she clapped and bounced to the music. She stood offstage by a piano and smiled the whole time. She looked like she had a nice personality. I noticed two things. She had no sense of rhythm, and Bill largely ignored her throughout the forty-minute show.

Bill and his group performed a pantomime to bits of songs from the decades from the 1940s to the 1980s. The audience was in good spirits and clapped and sang along, despite the fact that dinner had been delayed because no one had turned on the pilot light to heat up the lasagna.

The video operator was more creative this year, panning around the large crowded room. At least sixty people sat at long tables in the large meeting room, sipping beverages with a minimum of heckling. It’s a large space, with a piano and fireplace and shelves full of books. I’ve seen that room through the windows but never been inside. They’ve been remodeling during my sojurn at the moho park. I peered inside a couple times as I came by every few evenings to borrow and return paperback books at the book exchange boxes placed on the walkway outside the clubhouse door. During Covid and remodeling, the clubhouse was closed. Now the books are back inside on the shelves, and the outdoor book exchange is gone.

Bill was thrilled to have me as a captive audience to witness him relive his memories. He watched the show with obvious glee. “Here comes the good part,” he said several times, or “Let’s see if you recognize this song,” or “Did you see what I did there?” I did my best to be a good audience member, laughing in the right places, clapping once in a while, nodding, asking some relevant questions to show I was paying attention. I tried not to watch the clock, which was directly above the television screen.

I’ve met people like Bill, people who are desperate to be the center of attention, even if their moment of fame comes in a skit at a mobile home trailer park holiday party. He relished being the star. I got the impression he watched this DVD often. He knew all the lines. He echoed his words as he sat on the couch, chuckling, reliving his moments in the limelight, giving me the play-by-play of the show, explaining what was happening, like for example when the two women suddenly crouched down behind a barricade and started putting on vests and neckerchieves.

In fact, the group had props for all their songs. A lot of effort went into creating this production. The group dressed in cowboy hats and western gear to sing “Long Tall Texan.” The younger man “rode” a horsehead attached to a stick. During another number, they tossed armfuls of stuffed skunks into the audience as they sang “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road.”

“I was singing,” Bill told me. “I wasn’t pantomiming, I was singing. I only listened to the song three or four times to learn it.”

During the closing number, a lively Beach Boys tune, some of the audience members near the stage joined the group to dance to the music, Linda among them. She bounced on stiff knees, clapping off-beat, smiling gamely, while her husband Bill ignored her. Other than introducing her once at the start of the show, he never interacted with her, did not look at her, did not dance with her or touch her, did not stand near her when she joined the group on the stage. She might as well have been one of the props.

After the show was over, Bill motioned me to follow him toward the back of the mobile home. I followed him in sock feet along the plushly carpeted hallway as he showed me the photo gallery of Linda with the grandkids, one every Christmas until the last Christmas, when it was just the grandkids alone. Bill led me into the master bedroom, occupied by a king-sized bed and a couple dressers. I thought, if this goes sideways, I can probably take him. He’s built out of sticks. The overhead light was harsh. He pulled out some things from a dresser drawer.

“You might like to have these,” he said, holding out a navy and white machine-knitted winter scarf with tassles on both ends. “And these,” he said, holding out a plastic pack of footie socks. “And these gloves,” he said, handing me a pair of worn black wool gloves. I accepted the gifts politely, thinking oh lord, not more stuff. I put the scarf around my neck. It smelled of perfume.

Next, Bill led me into a large dressing room area. He pointed at a row of bottles and jars arrayed along a counter in front of a wall of mirrors. “Can you use any of that stuff?” I declined, claiming allergies, which is true. I do not wear cosmetics and use lotions at my peril.

Bill led me to a closet. “These?” he said, pointing to several knitted pullovers that I knew were much too small for me, even if I wore that style of clothing. I shook my head. “How about these shoes?” Bill said, pointing to a shoe caddy holding black slip-ons with low heels. I shook my head regretfully. Back in the hallway, Bill opened a cupboard. The shelves were packed with hardback books, most of which were by the psychic Sylvia Browne. Linda had been enamored with the psychic’s writing and performances. Bill offered to loan me some. I declined.

By now it was 9 pm and solid dark. I felt like I’d just missed meeting Linda, like she was just in the next room, just out of sight. I knew her clothes, I knew her smell. I did not have to ask Bill how much he missed her, even as he was jettisoning the last of her possessions. I did the same with my mother’s things before I left Portland. You can’t keep everything, and it’s better if someone else can use the stuff.

We went outside. Bill got his bike out of his shed and rode with me through the warm night air back to my car. Along the way, under a street light, I saw yet another flat lizard, pulverized into the asphalt by a car tire because it paused when it should have hustled.

Stuff in the here and now

Welcome to monsoon. At any moment the sky can rip apart and dump buckets of rain on your head. You walk along the road toward a lovely pink and orange sunset, basking in the soft desert air. Don't look over your shoulder, though, because an enormous soggy gray cloud is sneaking up behind you. 

A couple nights ago, I went out for a walk around the trailer park. I've got a route now, thirty minutes of mindless walking. At the point furthest from the trailer, the deluge began. Raindrops are big as plates here. I was drenched in short order and slogged back to the trailer with my cotton knit (pajama) pants clinging like saran wrap to my thighs. Plus, it was almost cold. I'm not used to being cold anymore. It was shocking to shiver. 

The night before the rain storm I met a tarantula crossing the road. It did not speed up or slow down. I watched it move at a measured pace. I wondered what I would do if a car approached. A few yards away I saw what was left of a lizard that hadn't been quite fast enough, flattened on the asphalt with its little claws frozen in a permanent oh hell no pose. It would have made a nice addition to my pressed lizard collection, had I such a thing, which I don't.

I met a trailer park neighbor on the bike path. We were both peering over the edge into the Rillito River after a downpour, trying to see if the river had water. We couldn't see any where we were on the bike path next to Sam's Club. Later I discovered if we'd walked about twenty paces to the east, we would have seen that indeed, the Rillito River was alive with flowing water. Sally is a ceramicist who recently had a falling out with some hoity-toity gallery owners and is taking a break from making art. Southwestern ceramics sell well here, she said. Anything Southwestern sells well, I'm coming to realize. For example, the artist I met who lives out in the desert apparently sells quite a few drawings of round-faced indigenous children dressed in native costumes . . . for some reason, those images appeal to tourists. Why is that? No idea. As if kids on reservations don't wear sneakers. Whatever. Anyway, if I want to make money making art, I better learn to draw saguaros and maybe tarantulas.

Yesterday I visited my possessions at the storage unit. I was looking for my APA manual. I couldn't find it. It's in a box or bag, somewhere in that dark closet. Boxes are stacked ten high. There is no room to maneuver, open boxes, and see what is inside. Finding anything on purpose is impossible. Finding things at random is the only viable strategy, not that useful when I'm looking for something specific. I ended up buying an electronic version of the book when I returned to my laptop. I won't miss the print version. 

What really got me was seeing my stuff. Seeing all the boxes with their optimistic hand-lettered labels: paper, paper, paper. I saw like five boxes labeled paper. What the heck, Carol? Looks as if I paid a fortune to ship a bunch of paper to Tucson. Clearly I was not in my right mind during those last few weeks in Portland. 

I've heard people say it's okay to look back at the past. Just don't stare. I don't regret my move to Tucson. I certainly don't want to stare at my past. I just miss my stuff. I know it's silly. I don't have much stuff, and none of it is important. But it's all I have left of my previous creative life. I don't know who I am without my stuff. I feel ridiculous saying it. I see the news. Many people around the world don't have stuff. A lot of people recently lost a lot of stuff, including people they love. 

I've heard people say suffering is optional. Maybe it is true I have a choice about how much I miss my stuff. Maybe I can decide what meaning my stuff has for me. Stuff is impermanent, I am temporary, and life can only be lived in the here and now. All that may be true. I don't know. I still hope to be reunited with my stuff someday before I get dementia and forget where I stored it.