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If A House Could Talk

On the last day of October,

An old man and his wife

Sat together

In a small lakeshore cottage.

An all-night rain

Thundered and murmured

On their metal roof.

And, together,

they dreamed...

I owe my existence to the power of dreams.

I am a house. Though I have been given the ability to speak, I am not human. I do not think human thoughts. I do not have human feelings. And yet, it is true that I am intimately entangled in the affairs of humans. Their stories include me. Their Hopes and Dreams permeate me.

Who am I speaking to? Well, only humans can read. I understand that machines may be able to read in the future. So, I am speaking to any and all readers who may stumble onto this story. The life experiences of a house are best understood as falling into two categories; what it is like to be a house, and our interactions with humans.

To be a house is to feel the pull of gravity, going all the way down to the center of the earth. And when you have two feet of heavy, wet snow on your roof, you Really feel that pull. Partially balancing off gravity, is the centripetal force generated by the spin of the Earth on its axis. At my latitude that speed is about 736 m.p.h., fortunately, not enough to throw me off into outer space. I was on the centerline of the recent total solar eclipse, so I got to see both the approaching Dark Zone that marked the beginning of the eclipse, and the approaching Light Zone that marked the end of the eclipse. These Dark and Light bands raced across my roof much faster (736 m.p.h.) than even the strongest storm winds.

I can see in 5 directions: North, South, East, West and Above. My hearing is, in part similar to human hearing, picking up vibrations in the air. But, I am also able to sense the deepest, low vibrations. I hear the subsonic grumbles of approaching thunderstorms, the muffled shock waves of distant earthquakes and the Lake s great ice sheets groaning in response to all the forces that act upon them. Sometimes, those forces build and build until the ice can no longer resist. Then, great ice plates shear apart, sending strong shock waves through the ice, through the ground I stand on, through my very bones.

I am a rectangle, 1,000 square feet, my long axis is oriented East-West. I have a good-sized deck along my Southeast side. I stand on the East Shore of Wally s Point, on Keeler Bay, Lake Champlain. My sunroom windows get the sunrises, direct, and reflecting off the Lake. Oh yes, and the moonrises, too - moonbeams shimmering and rippling on the bay, in night s deepest indigo. There are no streetlights on my dirt road, so, on very clear nights, I can see the Milky Way as a skein of diamonds scattered in a great arc above me. My humans will sometimes pause to look up in Wonder at their beauty, feeling, as I do, a profound sense of impermanence.

I was built by a telephone lineman, on a lakeshore lot that had 100 feet of lakefront. He and his wife (the Lavalees) dreamed of a lakeshore, three season camp. A place where they could escape their everyday lives and relax in a beautiful setting. Just as important, they wanted a camp that would draw in their children, and grandchildren, for summer visits at the lake .

The dreams of Mr. & Mrs. Lavallee did come true. Over many Summer Seasons, their Summer Camp lives were peppered with happy family gatherings.

Mr. Lavallee was a frugal fellow, who built me simple and cheap. It was what he knew, and what he could afford. It was Mrs. Lavallee who breathed Life into me. She poured her Love and Dreams into every detail of my interior, nothing expensive, but a loving reflection of her dreams. I could feel this most strongly in the East-facing sunroom, which she had decorated in a seashore motif. I miss that Love.

The Lavallées eventually got to the point where they needed to move to a condo in Burlington, so I was put up for sale. Across a long summer, there were no takers, and the Lavallées began to worry. Then, a couple pulled into my driveway in a wheelchair van. An electric scooter, driven by a middle-aged woman, rolled down and out of the van. Her husband stepped out of the van to greet Mr. Lavallee with a handshake. This new couple were Laurie and Art Huse.

As the men began a survey of the property, my garage and me, Laurie raced her scooter around to my Lake Side. Her excitement and hope radiated across my yard with the brilliance of a new sun. I could feel her dreams washing over the yard, over me. She had not a trace of doubt. Then Mrs. Lavallee opened a sunroom window and began to talk. It did not take long for Mrs. Lavallee to know that they should sell to the Huses, for she too could feel the power and yearning of Laurie s dreams. Her beloved camp would go to someone who loved it just as much as she did.

The men discussed my mechanics, plumbing, wiring, roof and property boundaries, as if these things might have any bearing on the sale. But the women had already sealed the deal. All the rest of it was just attending to the details.

And so, on an October afternoon, the couples sat with a realtor in my sunroom, and signed a sales document, binding the sale and taking me off the market. I remember the South Wind of that cool afternoon, how that brilliant autumn sun lit dozens of gulls bobbing on the bay, how Laurie could hardly stop staring out my windows to drink it all in. Somehow, I knew my new owners would take good care of me. I had no idea what was to come.

A week later, the Huses would return for their first solo visit. Laurie parked her scooter at the deck steps. Art helped Laurie, who had a cane, up the steps, onto my deck and into my interior. I was completely empty, with no heat, power or water. Art put a blanket on the floor and they both sat down to celebrate with pizza and a bottle of champagne. We did it! they shouted, laughing.

I was their camp for a year. They'd sneak away from their work to visit me, every chance they got. Coffee, and "Egg McMuffins" on the deck as they read The Burlington Free Press. Laurie began to plant flowers. I had settled on my foundations so much that my kitchen windows cracked. Art brought in experts. It soon became apparent I'd need a new septic system, before I could be jacked up. An engineer (Jeff) was brought in to design the system. Laurie confessed to Jeff that she dreamed of living here one day. Jeff heard her and secretly file paperwork, not just for a new septic system, but also for approval to convert the camp to a year-round residence.

When the letter came, the Zoning Board had approved our design for a new septic system. And - for something else, approval to convert me from a camp into a year-round residence. Art showed the letter to Laurie and asked, do you know anything about this? She shouted, "Jeff listened to me!" Art pointed out that the permit to convert was only good for a year. He said, now you have to figure out how to make the finances work. "I can do it!" she shouted, laughing. I could feel Laurie s dreams shift to living on the Lake. I had no idea how big a transformation that would be for me.

The following summer, two young carpenters appeared, with a big dumpster. They tore me down to the studs and rebuilt me into a modern home - energy efficient, fully handicapped accessible and filled with light all day long.

Laurie and Art had become my new humans. Art indulged his passion for fishing and photography. Laurie built flower gardens that wrapped around me. One of her favorite things was to roll her wheelchair up to a rock that bordered my lakeside walkway, put her feet up and read books. She loved me with all her heart and I sheltered her from the great lake storms, and from the storms that beset her life.

In 2020, a pandemic swept around the world, killing millions of humans. Somehow, COVID-19 infected Laurie and Art. Art recovered. About a week later, Art loaded Laurie into her wheelchair van and drove her to the closest Emergency Room. 36 hours after she first showed symptoms, she was gone. I never saw her again and I miss feeling her brilliant and unwavering love.

One day, later that Spring, Art got the special wind he had been waiting for. A strong and gusty wind, blowing out of the West, carrying leaves from my yard, into the Lake. At the bottom of my boat ramp, he raised handfuls of Laurie s ashes, high over his head. The great West Wind scattered those ashes out into Keeler Bay. Just as Laurie had wanted. He held back some of her ashes to be scattered on an island at the mouth of the Lamoille River, in Malletts Bay - Laurie s favorite wild place on the Lake.

It is now 2024 and Art still lives here, with his cat Rocket. It took years for Art to climb out of his grief at her loss. Now I know what pain and darkness feel like.

Art is once again actively working on me and my gardens. This fall, some Ash trees will be cut down, the gardens will be cleaned up for winter and bird feeders will go up again. I do feel Art s love for me and he still has dreams about living out his life in me. I watch the great chevrons of Canada Geese overhead. I hear their cries filling the air of Keeler Bay. Their calls seem to fill humans with a sense of melancholy and longing.

As for me, I look forward to winter bird feeding and ice fishermen. Art will dive into winter, as he always does, but...

Already, I feel him planning next year's flower garden. And, as the long dark months yield to lengthening days, he ll start listening for that brash trumpeter of Spring, the Redwing Blackbird arriving in my cattail swamp.

I am a house. I owe my existence to the power of dreams.