The exterior of my house is very pleasing to
the eye. It’s a modest, prairie home that is aging well and is comforting to
look at. The porch is large, with chairs and a couple of swings. On the porch I
am the perfect host - chatting, making people feel welcome, and carrying drinks
around on a little tray. I’m very engaged in the conversations, actively
listening, and moving smoothly from one group to the next.
People like the outside of my house and the
front porch. I take great pride in that.
But I don’t invite many people inside my
house. I need to know you pretty well before I let you see the interior, though
I do have a variety of photo albums available on the porch. These photos are a
carefully chosen selection from the various rooms inside my house. I’ve included
a few safe, but slightly intimate photos of my private rooms, so that you’ll
almost think you’ve been inside.
“Wow, these are great photos,”
someone on the porch says. “So intimate and beautiful and daring.”
“Thank you,” I say with a big smile. “More
lemonade?”
The people I allow inside are surprised to find
that the interior looks nothing like what you’d expect in a prairie home.
Through the front door is a large, open room that looks like a warehouse. Mounds
of papers, books, and dirty plates cover the tops of tables and desks. Even some
of the chairs have things stacked on them. Here and there are half-finished
projects, some buried under piles of financial statements, unused calendars, and
receipts. There is sawdust and trash all over the floor. Everywhere you look
there are chewed pencils.
In the warehouse I rush back and forth in a mad
panic, slapping things together, scribbling on papers, and stuffing things into
envelopes. A phone is cradled on my shoulder, and I am shouting apologies into
it. These apologies are as messy as the room, stitched together with lies and
half-truths.
If I see you in my warehouse, I am deeply
embarrassed and want to hustle you out of there as quickly as possible. I want
everyone to think that things are as calm and peaceful inside as they are on the
porch.
There is a door in one wall of the warehouse
that leads to the family room, which is a kind of secret club. There is a very
large lock on this door. Jeanene and I and the three sisters are the only ones
with keys. Occasionally one of the girls rushes through the front door, dashes
across the warehouse, and fumbles with the lock while looking over her shoulder
in a panic. When the door opens, she slips inside with an audible sigh of
relief.
One corner of the warehouse is more cluttered
than the rest of the room. As you approach it, the mess gets more extreme until
you think it can’t get any worse. Then you see the hidden, circular staircase
that leads to a room below. Soft music floats up the stairs along with scents
of patchouli and rosemary. Flickering lights from a fireplace below leap out of
the hole in the floor and beckon to you to enter.
The stairs lead to my sanctuary. Because of the
chaos above, it is astonishing that this room is perfectly neat and tidy, though
it is obviously well used. Famous paintings are on the walls, and elegant,
wooden shelves are filled with fine books with leather covers. The couches in
front of the fireplace look deliciously comfortable, and you can smell pipe
tobacco coming from tins on the mantel.
There is a home theater in one corner with a
fabulous collection of movies and music. Fountain pens, inkwells, and heavy
paper sit neatly on several wooden desks. All of my writing is done in this
room. Finished works are stored here in perfectly organized filing cabinets.
I’m very proud of this room. In truth, it is
the room I hope most defines me. When people visit here, I look up and
acknowledge their presence, then go back to whatever I was doing. I sometimes
find it difficult to engage people in my sanctuary; indeed I can barely hear
their voices.
There is a circular, hobbit door in one wall of
the sanctuary. It leads to a different sanctuary, one I abandoned in 1984. This
room is filled with juvenile literature, science fiction, a record player, and
an astonishing variety of sporting equipment. There are beanbag chairs all
around and shag carpet. 70s and 80s rock and roll posters fill the walls. On one
wall there are some framed pictures of girls in prom dresses. Their names are
carefully carved into the frames. The colors of these photographs are fading,
but they were clearly hung, long ago, in a place of honor and with great care.
Last year I entered this room for the first
time in many years. I looked around a bit, smiled at the pictures of the girls,
and then gasped when I saw my worn and beloved baseball mitt. I picked it up,
smelled it, and took it with me when I left.
There is also a secret door in my sanctuary. If
you push a hidden lever near the fireplace, a bookcase pops open to reveal a
hidden room. There is only one person who knows how to push this lever. When she
enters the room, her eyes sweep across the walls and shelves and then grow wide.
She giggles and puts her hand over her mouth. Something on the other side of the
room catches her eye. She stares at it intently. Her head tilts a little, and
she squints. A smile slowly grows on her face. It is the Mona Lisa smile of a
woman who knows that she is the one.
In the far wall of my hidden room is a door
that has wedges and spikes pounded under it and around the edges. The door
itself is scarred and splintered in places. It looks as though there has been a
fight over whether to open it or keep it closed. From inside there is a furious
pounding. Someone wants to come out. Someone selfish and extremely sensual,
someone rude and very indulgent. Someone who would sacrifice anything for the
pleasure of the moment. He needs pleasure, and he doesn’t give a damn about
anything or anyone else. He’s angry as hell to be locked inside. You can hear
him howling at night. And he swears that one day he will have his revenge.
On the floor, in a corner of my sanctuary,
there is a heavy, wooden trap door. In the center is a black, iron ring. This is
the door to the caverns beneath my house. It is very difficult to open this
door. It takes a lot of courage and an enormous amount of strength. You have to
grab the ring and pull with all your might. But sometimes this door pops open by
itself, especially at night. If you walk by and find that it is open, it will
slam shut as soon as you approach it.
Below the trapdoor are steps leading down into
the darkness. Mysterious and frightening sounds rise from below. There is the
sound of running water, the insane laughter of demons and lunatics, and grinding
noises, like large gears slowly turning. Sometimes you hear the groans of slaves
and prisoners who are apparently trapped below the house.
I’ve only gained the strength to open the trapdoor
in the last ten years or so. In 2002 I began opening it regularly and going down
the stairs. I bring up strange artifacts and set them on the mantle, where I
puff away at my pipe and gaze at them in wonder. Sometimes I write about the
things I find below. But it’s hard because when you write about what’s below,
you cannot pass judgment. You can only describe what you have found. So many
people do not understand that.
There are many other doors in the house. Some I
have opened and others I have not. There is even a mysterious hallway that leads
out of the house to places unknown. I do not know this house yet, but I am
exploring more of it with each passing year.
These days a lot of people have been stopping
by my front porch. The photos are there, of course, but lately I’ve been going
down to the sanctuary and bringing up things I have written. I nail them to my
front door or leave them on tables beside the swings. Sometimes I look out the
window and am amazed to find that people are reading my work. All of it. Every
blessed word.
A dear friend, one who spends time with me in
front of the fireplace, recently asked me where God was to be found in my house. I tamped tobacco into the bowl of a simple
wooden pipe and considered the question.
“It has taken me many years to discover the
answer to that puzzle,” I say while lighting the pipe.
“As it turns out, God can be found in every
room in this house. In all of them. And I am slowly learning to be comfortable with
that.”
rlp
Prairie style home
