Closing the House
On How to Tell If You Live in a House or a Home
A while back, I found myself at a gathering, swept into a conversation about the rituals of shuttering island homes post-vacation. The consensus seemed to be an unspoken rule—leave spaces agape, rooms and drawers unlocked, a purposeful unraveling. Wrapping clothing was paramount, a defense against the omnipresent dampness that could corrode every corner.
It struck me then, in those acts of closure—clearing out the fridge, purging the clutter—a certain choreography, as if erasing every trace of habitation, casting aside a backdrop for the next act. We're clearing the stage, wiping clean the slate. This transitory rotation of spaces becomes profound, an allegory for life’s unyielding flux—everything ebbs, and in time, everyone is replaced.
When it was my turn to shut our haven, those advices echoed. I adhered to the wisdom of humidity gurus, in stark contrast to my customary farewells, leaving every aperture open.
What no one cautioned me about was the nebulous aftermath of those deeds, like a phantom shadow that lingered. In fact, two sensations emerged, braiding themselves around me: a detachment of memory and an intangible longing.
The Forgotten Memory:
I was suddenly reminded of a particular day, a finite moment in the chronicle of my life. The final day when the first family I knew relinquished the homestead. It was a departure irrevocable, an era extinguished. Life, I observed, has a penchant for its clandestine denouements.
It's a curiosity whether other households marked these transitions, if some invoked a ritual to consecrate the event, or perhaps, as in my case, it was greeted by the same quietude that it departed with—almost clandestine.
It might have been when my eldest sibling set out to foreign shores. Then, another brother ventured off with his first love. Gradually, my parents too moved on, each step carving a vacancy. The story unfolded, and I was the final paragraph, the lingering echo.
It was my hands that locked the door, leaving behind the dwelling that cradled my earliest memories. Yet, in this undertaking, there's no vestige of that pivotal day, the moment I packed fragments of my life into boxes, trading familiar spaces for a Barcelona flat during my days as a practicing lawyer. The attic, once contested for its coveted expanse, was left behind. I must have clicked that lock into place, armed the security system, disposed of the final remnants. None of it remains in my recollection.
Perhaps, I clung to the soothing assurance that this was merely an intermission. The truth is, the only time I returned to that abode was on the night panic clawed at my throat, a story I shared in a prior letter.