Snow and Wallpaper

The day after we closed on our house, it snowed. So instead of filling up the truck with boxes and furniture, we shoveled slushy ice until our hands went numb. Too cold and slippery to move anything, we went about our day in the old house, as though nothing had changed. Still, I kept envisioning the slightly peeling wallpaper inside the kitchen cabinets at the new house, and the satisfaction I would get from ripping it out and starting from scratch. 

I’ve created cozy spaces in dorm rooms, apartments, and houses that were never really mine. But this is the first time I am starting fresh with someone in a house with a deck and a kitchen that I get to fill with spices and dishes. I remember hanging a Beatles poster on my dorm room wall and setting up my CD player/alarm clock. That was a good feeling. But this is different. It has me crying over the coffee mug someone gave me for Christmas that says: “My cup runneth over.” Because, puns aside, my life really is overflowing with God’s kindness. 

I keep changing my mind about wallpaper. I showed Evan a floral print for the stairs and he agreed. But then I found some with black and white drawings of bears. Then foxes. And now I can’t decide. Everyone keeps tells me that I will regret putting it up. That even the removeable stuff is stubborn, and that one day I’ll wish I had just found a nice can of white paint. They are probably right. But, right now, I’m going to practice something I’ve never been good at: living in the moment. And in this moment, I like the idea of being surround by images of woodland creatures.

We had some friends over for curry and rice, despite the teetering stacks of books and boxes everywhere. After dinner, we grabbed six bowls, six spoons, and two cartons of ice-cream, and drove to the new place. Our friends got out, trudged through the snow up to our new front door. They admired the old woodwork, dreaming with us about what the place could become. We got some lawn chairs out of the car and set them up in our empty living room. We ate ice-cream with our winter coats still on, and somehow, it already feels like home. 

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