Stalking

I must confess I am a stalker. I stalk real estate, specifically older homes. I prefer to stalk homes built before 1950. These homes have a charm that most newer homes (mine included) are lacking. Added to that charm is the sense that these homes have contained so many human emotions in their walls over the years - love, hatred, apathy, jealously, betrayal, angst, happiness, joy, etc.


It borders on a sickness sometimes. I am almost OCD in the homes that I stalk. I must, if possible, drive or bike past them every day. I almost never achieve this on the weekends, when I try to maintain a veneer of sanity. But during the week, when there is a boy to be taken to preschool and fetched back, when there are errands to be run, watch out. That is when I let my freak flag fly, so to speak. If they are for sale, I religiously follow the ads, remarking on every drop in price to my ever patient husband. I ponder the type of buyer that would be interested, and daydream about purchasing the house when I win the lottery (which I never play).

Right now I am stalking 4 homes in the Boro. They are all downtown and built prior to 1950. When I am biking, I can see at least three of them. I start by going past the lovely brick cottage on 2nd Avenue. It looks like what I have always pictured a college professor's house to look. It is built of a warm red brick and has a double lot. There are old trees, scattering their leaves. I managed to go to an Open House for this one once. It is beautiful inside, and I can picture my family quiet happily ensconced there (especially in the kitchen with its 3 pantries. For a woman lacking one pantry, 3 seems like exotic riches to me).


I then, through various twists and turns, always keeping one ear on the children to make sure they are still in one piece, turn down College St. There, on the right, is a lovely brick home, built in the first decade of the twentieth century . Because I am sick, I managed to go to an estate sale once at this home, mainly so I could gawk inside to my heart's content.


It was lovely albeit a bit strange inside. There was one room that I have not yet determined its true purpose. Two bunk beds are built into the wall (which charmed me immediately). You walk a bit further into the room, turn a corner, and run right into a toilet. Yes, a toilet and sink. So I am not sure if this is the bathroom you use when you have the flu and can't climb the stairs to go back to bed, or if this is where you put the guests you did not want to visit to begin with.


The next house I hit is down the street. It is a lovely blue wooden house, built in 1912. It has the best porch. I can imagine sitting on this porch, waiting for the kids to come home, watching the leaves fall.


The fourth house, on Lytle, I do not get to stalk as often. It is across the street from a school, and again, has that faux English Tudor look that I imagine is popular with the professorial set.


I think as humans we are all hard-wired to search for something. The hunt changes over the years, and takes various forms. Some see it as a hunt for meaning, a reassurance that there is some purpose to this life. Some see it as an expression of unhappiness with one's current life, a desire to escape to where life would presumably be better.


I do not think my search and stalking of these unsuspecting homes is necessarily a desire for a better home. I like my little house, and like having a house I can clean in just a couple of hours. (Why they did not put more closet space in these 60s ranchers is a question for another day). I do not think it is a desire for a different life. I happen to like the life I lead. Why I am compelled to seek out and stalk older homes is not something I quite understand myself.


It may be in part a desire for a simpler time. I always joke to my husband that I apparently want to move to the 1930s, a time when I would live downtown and walk everywhere, become a regular at the City Cafe, etc. Not that the 1930s were simpler for everyone, or that everyone was glad about all that simplicity that the Depression forced on everyone. I think deep down I want to live in a place and a time when you weren't expected to have a cell phone and to always have it with you. When you walked places instead of drove. When you knew all the friends of your children and their parents. When you didn't run crazily around, going to soccer and choir, playtimes and museums in a quest to make your children more intelligent. When you sat on your porch and visited with neighbors and family. When Sunday afternoons meant a nap, not more work.


So the thought I am left with today is that I wish to live in a mythical time and place. So instead of wishing my life away, perhaps I will try my best to make this life and this time a time of wonder, of laughter, of joy, and of grace.