I haven’t actually written anything besides Craigslist ads or emails for I don’t know how long (I know a gasp from all you super devoted writers). I don’t have any diversion towards it or anything, I just haven’t made time for it. I do, however, write in my head, mostly as I go to bed at night. I have started many novels, written various emails or thought of what could go on my blog next. Last night’s writing was for Sharon’s blog though and I felt inspired to actually put it down on paper.
When I saw the picture of the river, my heart sank a little. Upper Darby, Pennsylvania is fine, but I don’t love it the way that I LOVE southeast Idaho, especially Sharon’s house. I know what you all are thinking. We all love Sharon’s, but I think that my generation of Writing Center folk, especially a few of us, have special claim on her Idahoan paradise. We were there when she first moved in. We were there for her first Christmas. In fact, I decorated her house while she was gone because she absolutely refused to let me decorate while she was there (she didn’t want it decorated at all…but I’m stubborn). I was one of the first to live at Sharon’s and I know I was definitely one of the first to clean Sharon’s. I picked out the colors for her deck (saving us all from an ugly gray) and for her kitchen, and along with Trevor, Emily and Serena, signed my name in cranberry colored paint behind her refrigerator in an effort to become immortal according to the house.
I’m not exactly sure what the purpose of this post is, other than to maybe say that there is something special, maybe even a little bit magical, about that house. We have all loved it for so many reasons. So I guess this is to say, Sharon, if the rumor mill is true and you are thinking of selling (again), just know that your house has healed and helped more than just you. We all love your house and we have all needed the sanctuary that it provides at sometime or another.
Oh and if you do sell, make sure to tell the new owners that there is a pretty good chance that there will be hippie kids coming in and out looking for you, probably for as long as the house is there.
3 comments:
JEN! Beautiful post. I'm a bit honored to be the first to comment on it. Well, I am typing this FROM Sharon's house...I came home last night at 2:40 a.m. and guess who was still up trying to get the internet to work? So we worked out the kinks and got online and then realized it was 3:30 and both crashed, miraculously making it to some beds first. Sharon's outside somewhere fiddling with sprinklers, but I am here, staring at the walls and remembering pulling down wallpaper with you and Trev and Serena while Sharon told us she would get all Charlotte Perkins Gilman on us if she stayed.
So while Sharon was off buying clothes hangers as rewards for our hard work (I still use them), the Beatles and Alanis cds we put in eventually ended and were replaced with Sharon's Native American music she liked to dance in the river to early in the morning. I think the music lasted a good ten minutes before one of us pulled the plug. I also remember the gray deck. And the feeding of the horses.
Remember looking all over Ketchum for a "water crystal" during Sharon's feng shui phase? Hahahaha! Jen, I think you should definitely keep writing your night thoughts on here. And are you serious about the novels? Do it! I had no idea!
When I say novels, I mean that I come up with about two sentences and then crash. Novel nights help me sleep very quickly. I am no creative writer...I am an analyzer, but thanks for the encouragement. I am so jealous that you are at Sharon's. I am sitting in the heat listening to the never-ending construction that helps make Upper Darby the great place it is.
Is the stoned-mama's family still slip-and-sliding in the mud next door? Which reminds me--I was really impressed at how you took that roof-man's walking all over your clean house and rug in those horrible dirty dirty boots of his. You didn't even flinch. Even I would have at least ran my fingers nervously through my hair with those boots tromping around, and I am a pig sty!
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