My time in Iowa came to an end in a rather hectic, bittersweet way today. I return to the city of sin tomorrow afternoon, where there is much writing and working out to be done and many birthday celebrations (or at least one, tastefully lowkey 9/11 birthday celebration) to be had. But today was all about the past. I spent the afternoon sifting through the detritus of two abandoned houses -- the one I grew up in, and the one where I spent a lot of time as a child. During our 'documentation of all things' project this week, my mother said that there was a box of her stuff that never made it to the new house. Since the old house is across the driveway from the new house, one would think that this wouldn't be a difficult task -- but if one thinks that, one doesn't understand how fast old farmhouses fall apart when they're unoccupied. When I realized what was in that box (the yellow flower canisters from my youth), I was determined that we should go get it.
So my mother and I prepared to go across the driveway, but my father and brother cleared the path first with an expeditionary force loaded for bear (or at least raccoon) but didn't turn up anything (other than one of our cats, which almost bought it before being recognized in time). And we retrieved the box, as well as a whole bunch of [censored]'s stuff that had been left upstairs. As it turned out, it was easier to get the stuff out of the upstairs by getting my dad's platform lift and loading things onto the lift through the second-floor window -- not a method I've ever used to move, but one I wish I had access to in my current place, with its multiple flights of stairs. The end of the expedition was a success that nearly turned into disaster; we stopped just in time, since an absolute downpour started just as my father drove the lift back across the driveway, so we hustled everything into the garage in the pouring rain and then stopped for the day.
However, I didn't spend all my time helping them (probably much to their chagrin, since I instigated it). I had to go see my grandmother and say goodbye to her, and she was down at her old house with my aunt, sorting through her own detritus. A planned half hour turned into more like an hour-plus; there's much more stuff left in her house than ours, since she only moved to assisted living a few weeks ago, but at least her house still has power and isn't yet in an advanced stage of decay. Still, it's so strange to go through things that once mattered so much and now no longer matter, or still matter but have no purpose, or evoke memories of other things that have long since disappeared.
And I suppose that's the hardest part for me, at least, about going through these abandoned things -- other than the allergies and asthma, it's seeing bits of life, of my past, strewn across floors and buried under slowly-collapsing houses, and knowing that you can't save everything. The perfectionist in me wants to burn it all; the hoarder sifts through the wreckage looking for salvage. None of my stuff, with the exception of one plate, was in our old house, since I'd flown home for a week a few years ago to get it all out right when my parents moved. But it's still our old house, where my childhood happened, decaying at a rate that it feels like it was abandoned four decades ago, rather than four years. It was totally livable when we moved out; now, ceilings have collapsed, mounds of insulation and debris cover some of the floors, and water pours into the hall closet through a hole in the roof. Even my grandmother's house is fading fast; the floors are softening and the walls are bowing, in a process that started years ago but will accelerate this winter when it goes through freezes and thaws with no indoor heat. And this story is playing out across the hundreds of abandoned houses, barns, corncribs, etc. in the area. There just aren't enough people left to live in them, take care of them, or even destroy them. Nature is taking it all back, at a rate that makes you realize just how fragile the manmade world is.
So anyway, it was all mildly depressing, but progress was made, and I'm happy. And if nothing else, my mother's box of dishes was still perfectly intact, so at least there's that. After we finished, I helped my dad freeze ice cream (verdict: half frozen due to some malfunction of the ice cream freezer, but utterly delicious thanks to my mom's preparation of the ice cream base), and then my dad made rotisserie chicken and my mom made corn (plus the potato salad she made earlier in the day). It was ostensibly my birthday dinner a week early, so happy birthday to me! And now, sadly, I really should go to bed; I need to pack in the morning, and we'll have to leave here around 1:30 if I'm going to make my flight. Goodnight!
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