It’s New Year’s Eve, the windchill is near zero, and I’m home–alone–painting. They’re expecting 10,000 people for a party at Navy Pier. At midnight, I’ll be able to see the fireworks from my windows, but I’m spending the last few hours of the old year putting a coat of black enamel on the windowsill in my apartment: an apartment that will have been gutted and remodeled and rented to strangers long before the next New Year’s party begins. For that matter, in less than a month I have to be out of here.
It took another year to get the place cleaned up. The miniblinds were the first thing to go, ten minutes after I took possession. I sealed them in garbage bags and stuck them at the back of the hall closet. The carpet was next. In its place went gray rubber tile. I painted the walls a soft gray that matched the floor. It took a while to get all the crank mechanisms working again on the 1950s casement windows, but once I got them open for some fresh air, I started on the ugly job of stripping their metal frames. There were at least a dozen layers of latex paint, most of them brown or off-white. When I finally got down to what was left of the original factory finish, it turned out to be a startling aqua. That meant another week or so to weigh the question of historical accuracy versus the vision in my head. In the end, the vision won. Four coats of silver automotive paint did the trick, buffed down between coats. Now the frames and the panels between the windows gleam like mirrors.
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I do love my place in Peoria, my weekend place. My friend Suzan calls it a museum, but it’s friendly and comfortable, and it’s the kind of place where if you take off your shoes and leave them in the middle of the floor, it’s not a problem. Last Sunday’s Tribune, still in its out-of-town wrapper? An empty juice box balanced on the arm of a chair? Oh, well. That’s the appeal of the cluttered look–it’s very forgiving. Somehow, though, even though I’ve had the place for 15 years, it’s still just a place with potential. That is, it’s still not the place I meant it to be. In fact, sometimes I think it’s farther away from that than it was when I moved in. Because it not only still has the same ancient wallpaper–fading just a little more every year, coming a little more unglued from the wall all the time–its seven rooms have in the meantime become like a huge magnet, drawing from vast distances not only the real treasures of my family’s history, but also the sad artifacts of my ancestors’ short-lived enthusiasms.
Of course, we live in chaotic times, and nothing in this world is ever really permanent. The loss of people and places we love is just a sad fact of life, so it’s not like I thought I’d be able to live here forever. I always knew I’d have to leave someday. I just never imagined someday would come so soon. I guess we never do.
