New Focus for this Blog — When Your Front Door Opens to Chard

I now have a Substack account for blogs about adoption now. It’s nice to have a space where I can write about everything else.

I wasn’t sure what living in an Airstream would be like. For one thing, there’s the bathroom. It’s sort of a closet where the shower and the toiler and the sink are all sharing space. There’s no pretense of, I don’t know, dignity? The sink’s faucet and the showerhead are one in the same. All I have to do is pull on the faucet and hook it onto the wall, and, as Kitty Stockett writes in The Calamity Club, wallah.

So that’s the worst of it. (I don’t feel like writing about the toilet. For once in my life, I’m forgoing an opportunity to talk about poop. Maybe this place is changing me for the better!)

The best part is how easy life feels. Cleaning can be done in about three minutes. The frig and storage areas are small so shopping is down to a minimum. I have a cast iron skillet sitting on the stove, so whatever I want to cook has to fit in that thing. There isn’t much room to store leftovers so I have the wonderful invitation to eat them while they are still hot. Essentially, I mean, I have good reasons to eat everything so I don’t have leftovers. For someone who could easily eat out of a trough as a plate, this feels like a nice homey feature. There is an oven, but, uh, why bother going to any trouble when Taco Bell is a mile away? has been my response so far.

I leave the door open all day usually because I like that Bird can decide if he wants to be in or out on his own. I like the breeze. I like to hear the birds (and the traffic of the nearby street). I like to look out at the raised gardens of chard and collard greens and artichokes and, a little farther away, the larger garden that now has more strawberries than anyone around here can eat.

Outside, there are two metal swinging couches that are dirty and marked by bird shit and fallen gooseberries. They look like something your poor cousin Opal might have in her yard (to be the Boston middle class asswipe I still am, even with these swings). I love them and spend hours every day doing nothing or reading or writing or folding paper cranes for my daughter’s upcoming wedding.

The bed is tucked into the end of the Airtream where there are three windows. The mattress sinks down in the middle, but for some reason my back doesn’t mind. I think my body thinks I’m a bird in a nest, and so it accommodates and sleeps well. When it rains, it sounds like the world is trying to pelt its way inside. Luckily, it’s summertime now. I can hear creatures running overhead on the metal roof at night, and it makes me feel like a child for some reason. Safe. It’s almost like I’m hiding out and enjoying the secrecy of being inside here. I don’t know. It feels fun.

I’m starting my third month here. For the first two months I was nervous that something would happen that would make it feel impossible to live here. Like, you know when you’re on a date and your new-ish boyfriend or girlfriend or themfriend says or does something and you feel in your guts there’s no going back, that nothing could convince you to stay? I was afraid that would happen to me one day when I was taking a shower or that I’d be washed with shame that I was a grown-ass woman living in 150 or so square feet.

But instead the relationship just keeps getting better.

I love this place right now.

I don’t have to shower every day, anyway. It’s not like I’m sweating, sitting here, dreaming, writing, turning the page.