A Pile of Bricks in Babylon

Thank Goodness, the children like the house.

I’m not the kind of mother that lets her precious cherubs know anything in advance. If you want a recipe for heart break, gather all your offspring together and explain to them what is going to happen that day, then watch everything devolve in endless sorrow as one plan after another fails entirely. No, I always like to say as little as possible about what is going to happen next so that practically everything is a dream and a joy and a surprise.

So, well, the children did know that we were looking at a particular house, and eventually they did see pictures–grainy strange pictures snapped hurriedly, pictures that afterwards made you wonder why you thought you needed to remember a blank unadorned corner or the inside of a cupboard, and which cupboard was it. But they never got to see the house until we had signed every single last piece of paper. Then we gathered them and took them over and let them wander all over. And I ruined everything by saying we could take the dogs.

Super Charming Things About This House
*Elphine, on the cusp of turning 14, gets to have her own room. Turns out, which I did not know, the room is a square, not a rectangle, and this is very important, and was much mentioned, although I cannot remember why.
*There is, and I am not lying, an enormous jacuzzi tub.
*The laundry is on the main level, right near the kitchen, and there are windows out of which you can see and light can flow in.
*There are lots of bedrooms. Enough for everyone to spread out and be comfortable.
*There are incredible opportunities for hide and seek.
*There are ancient maids quarters so that one of the children can be turned into Cinderella. Trying to decide which one.
*The kitchen is made of wood and not of particle board.
*The kitchen has two enormous windows.

I could go on but I will try to contain myself.
I do find practically every moment now holding a peculiar dissonance. The house is so old and beautiful, so stately, so permanent. But then I go read the news, or think about the overburdening problems of most every single person I am worried about, and I can’t help feeling the folly of such a choice. Wasn’t it Jeremiah who was told to go buy land, right when the Babylonians were down his throat, wrecking everything? And he had to have thought, “you’ve got to be kidding.” Buying a house must be a bit like having a baby–there is no good time to do it.

Right after we signed the papers I read all kinds of depressing headlines about Hillary Clinton, and then the flap about Iowa, and then Baghdad, and then that poor girl harassed by the TSA, and then Flint, and then I stopped because I wanted to burst into tears. I have, somehow, to cling on to the possibilities of such a house in such a broken world. I don’t know what they are, since God (like me, cough) doesn’t let me know anything about the future. I can only arrange the furniture, sweep the floor, boil the water for tea, and wait to see what God will do.