The True Nature of a House
Yesterday was a gray day here in the GTA, with no break in the clouds all day for any bright rays to peek through. Hubby and I drove north and west of the city, to check out the progress winter is making in clearing itself out of spring's way. Tendrils of fog spread their fingers across the road at random intervals, sometimes hindering our view of the drive ahead. Like a child covering someone's eyes from behind with their hands, the fog spread its fingers across our windshield. I almost expected a whispering voice to declare, "Surprise!", as we rounded the bend in the road and the fog lifted.
Up around the thriving little metropolis of Sandford, we found ourselves on a dirt road. The countryside around us was covered with a lacework of farmers' fields. Outlined against the dull skies were the various outbuildings and the houses the families call home. Small and square; big and rambling, the houses stood ready at the end of each winding driveway, waiting to welcome back each family member who had stepped out of the doorway during that gloomy day.
Looking at those houses as we passed, I was vouchsafed an understanding of their nature that had not been given to me before. Houses are not structures built to plan, as they would have us believe. They are, instead, space that has been captured by someone talented enough to throw the right shape of net over a house-shaped space and cage it round with walls.
A builder of houses must be able to see the ethereal outline of a house-to-be as it tries to hide itself in the great outdoors. A builder of houses must know how to drive the nails just right to hold the walls strong and snug around the space as it struggles to free itself, until it settles into its new confinement and resigns itself to being lived in.
A builder of houses knows, however, what every house-dweller must understand as well. Space trapped by man-made walls will stay only so long before it demands its freedom again. That is why foundations shift with the passing years as the space pushes against them and seeks out the weakest joints, the best places to begin a crack that can grow into an escape route with the passage of time.
The span of years given to any human who might dwell within such a space is finite. Even multiple generations will one day all pass away and the space will finally be left, unhindered in its quest to return to the great outdoors from whence it was taken.
The true nature of a house is not to be a home, no matter what sentimental characteristics we humans might try to impose on it. No. The true nature of a house is only the brief taming of a wild, free space into a dwelling place, while it deigns to serve as a home.
Up around the thriving little metropolis of Sandford, we found ourselves on a dirt road. The countryside around us was covered with a lacework of farmers' fields. Outlined against the dull skies were the various outbuildings and the houses the families call home. Small and square; big and rambling, the houses stood ready at the end of each winding driveway, waiting to welcome back each family member who had stepped out of the doorway during that gloomy day.
Looking at those houses as we passed, I was vouchsafed an understanding of their nature that had not been given to me before. Houses are not structures built to plan, as they would have us believe. They are, instead, space that has been captured by someone talented enough to throw the right shape of net over a house-shaped space and cage it round with walls.
A builder of houses must be able to see the ethereal outline of a house-to-be as it tries to hide itself in the great outdoors. A builder of houses must know how to drive the nails just right to hold the walls strong and snug around the space as it struggles to free itself, until it settles into its new confinement and resigns itself to being lived in.
A builder of houses knows, however, what every house-dweller must understand as well. Space trapped by man-made walls will stay only so long before it demands its freedom again. That is why foundations shift with the passing years as the space pushes against them and seeks out the weakest joints, the best places to begin a crack that can grow into an escape route with the passage of time.
The span of years given to any human who might dwell within such a space is finite. Even multiple generations will one day all pass away and the space will finally be left, unhindered in its quest to return to the great outdoors from whence it was taken.
The true nature of a house is not to be a home, no matter what sentimental characteristics we humans might try to impose on it. No. The true nature of a house is only the brief taming of a wild, free space into a dwelling place, while it deigns to serve as a home.
2 Comments:
Yes, but what interesting houses people do build, when they set their minds to it. Check this out.
BTW ... quite poetic, that piece.
Interesting post!
I too was out amongst the houses the other (gray) day, and I had a bit of a different reaction. I have now helped build houses, and I find that so many houses I passed in Markham are the same; tiny cardboard-cutout windows on ONE SIDE of the 2nd floor, and maybe a sliding door and one or two windows on the main floor. How depressing! What a way to, as you say CAGE space. leaving the space to die alone, and without any connection to nature. If I could build my own house, I would build a home! Give me an open concept house. Give me a house that has the least to do with brick and concrete possible. "what interesting houses people CAN and SHOULD build". We do not have to keep making houses the way we are currently building. Stop building out, caging useful farmland. Murdering the ground that used to bear fruit and feed us. My friend was talking about the fields (I think) in the area of Markham Road and Steeles, and how they used to pick wild cucumbers there, and each year they had to go further and further up north until there was no more use in doing that, becuase the fields were almost all gone. I say wipe out a coupld of Markham blocks, tell those people "you poor little people with your $750,000 houses!" and build condos, that could each go for $180-300,000 and house many more people. To go the other way, try to make housing as sustainable as possible. Let's take sustainable housing to the next level; not just monster homes, or "nature" homes, but nature condos. Let's put the landscape to good use, and try to be as wise as possible here, as opposed to just making pretty monster homes for rich .... people.
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