Our house is very old, a double-walled brick monstrosity built in the 19th century. It’s wonderful, with its wavy windows and hardwood floors with visible nail heads. 

The house is painted and there’s only one place to see the color of the bricks, a single exposed kitchen wall. The bricks there are deeply red and pink and reddish brown. They are different sizes too and you can see where the bricklayers used mortar to even things out. Sometimes, when I walk through the rooms, I think about how many feet have trod those floors, how many voices have been absorbed into the walls, how many people have lived and died here, how many teenagers have forgotten that the third step from the bottom squeaks at about 120 dB.

There are many, many inconveniences that come with an older house. It was originally heated only with fireplaces, which means that it’s cold year-around, except in my attic bedroom which is freezing all winter and hotter than a glass kiln from May until November. The electricity was added in the early 1900s and outlets must have been quite a luxury because there are only like 10 in the whole house. As the house shifts and groans through the seasons, the doors stop fitting properly into their door frames. Several of the door knobs only work occasionally which might keep you in or out of a room without warning. On top of all that, the basement walls are limestone and they weep like a grandmother who has buried all her children.

Our house also comes with an extraordinary abundance of bricks. When we first moved in, I was going to plant a vegetable garden in the back. It was terribly overgrown but I like to dig in the dirt so I was ready for the challenge. Two weeks after we moved in, I pushed my way through the weeds, armed with gloves and tools, and discovered, after significant clearing, a brick patio under all that overgrowth. I felt as though I had unearthed ancient treasure. 

It’s still there, years later, but it hasn’t been the treasure I was expecting. It quickly becomes overgrown every year by the encroaching ivy that some evil, evil gardener planted. The ivy grows under the bricks and then pushes up between them, destabilizing the patio and destroying my confidence. Each spring, I roll up my sleeves and give myself a pep talk:  “This is the year, dearest; this is YOUR year. You are going to conquer that ivy. You are smarter than that ivy; you are better than that ivy. You have opposable thumbs. GO. GO. GO.”  

Unfortunately, this isn’t going to be my year for conquering the ivy but we have decided, at least, to embrace that extraordinary brick abundance, currently tucked in every conceivable hiding place. They line some of the garden beds; the Hostas push their way through every year (so do all the weeds, I assure you). They are stacked against the fence and the outside walls of the house. They’re piled in the weedy back and under the deck. They’re everywhere you want to be, just like Visa but without the purchase options. So you think you want to add tulip bulbs to that garden bed? How much do you want to move the 30 bricks stacked there?

What are we planning to do with all those bricks, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you! We’re building a dry-laid container garden. And, oh, what a task it has turned out to be. The weeds! The tree roots! Leveling the ground! The weight of the bricks! We have blisters on our blisters but we’re finally, as of yesterday evening, at the point where we can see the future image of our completed container, which is something of a reward in itself. 

I’ve been working on some new poetry. The poems are kind of a spoof of pop culture poems. When I get stuck, as all writers do, I’ll take a break from one project and move to another. Recently, I’ve been focused on food-based poetry, an unexplored poetic theme, in my opinion. Here is a poem I wrote on Saturday: 

It’s That Simple

Life is an avocado
Don’t bake it
Slice it and
Smear it on some toast

I have no idea what that means but I laugh every single time I read it (so embarrassing to laugh at one’s own writing).

Find a moment of joy today and savor it. 

Much love. Stay safe.