Cedar and Sage 4/2/02 (Background Noise) in Background Noise

I was rinsing off a plate or a coffee cup, don’t remember which. I looked at the drying plant on the raised wood platform that straddles the sinks and thought “What the hell is that….?”. Quickly followed by: “Oh…sage.” Part of the ritual we aren’t that sure we want to accomplish. Yet.

There is plenty of cedar to be had. The scraps from the repair job to the siding is all cedar, as are the last few remaining pieces of fencing material stacked against the north side of the house.

Over a year ago, I was given the advice by my woo-woo new age therapist to burn cedar and sage, and ask (them/he/she) respectfully to leave. They aren’t benevolent, or malevolent. I have a feeling they have been here a long time.

This house was built in 1978, on what would have been at that time an alder grove, just above what at the turn of the century was a Potlatch of the Skagit Indians. I was led to believe the house was built by an elderly gentleman and his wife as a place to retire. You can’t question that this house was never meant to house a family – too small and not configured for the demands of family life. But for a couple in the fall of their life it would have been just perfect.

I feel deeply connected with this place, despite it’s shortcomings, and the poorly laid out lot, too long and not nearly enough deep. But the view. Oh, the view. I can stand at the corner by the street, or on the manhole cover for the sewer and see the Olympics. I can see sailboats sailing past, and eagles flying. I can see forever from that corner.

The ex never particularly liked it. She came to refer to it as “that house” (you have to put the tone in your thought as if you just found a rabbit turd at the bottom of your latte).

I sunk my hands into every corner of this long skinny lot, planted roses and fruit tress with my father. I put tomatoes and Walla Walla sweets into the garden just to the south of the house. I boarded the windows against terrific windstorms that never came. This was the first house I ever owned. This is the only house I have ever owned.

Arriving here in early 2000, just Chris (the not a dope dealer yet) and I. We settled in, with almost no furniture: lawn chairs in the living room, a queen size inflatable bed for me, a sleeping bag for him. We settled in.

All was not peaceful. Random late night calls from a woman who was losing her mind, the basic logistical problems of trying to work full time and be a father, and run the minor household we had were getting to me. Baby was there, but at the end of the phone line.

One night, laying on the air mattress, in the silence of the night I heard the distinct sound of the front closet door opening – then closing. It is a very recognizable sound. The closet doors are the crappy sliding type that seem to be equipped on every house built in the seventies. The bearings on the rollers have long since given out and it is a chore to slide either side opened or closed. The sound is unmistakable.

I glanced at the clock – 0200. I wondered to myself “Why in the crap is Chris digging around in the front closet?” I got up, put on my shorts and a t-shirt, opened my bedroom door, just across from Chris’. His door was closed. I turned on the hall light, and opened his door. Chris was curled up under his covers. Asleep. Now concerned about the sound I heard, I headed down the hall the front room. The closet was closed. I opened and closed it. Same sound. The blood froze in my veins. I dashed back to my pseudo-bed and buried myself under the covers and wished that boogeyman away. I don’t think I slept.

We have had other strange incidents in this house. Noises and the like. Things sometimes explicable, sometimes not. I still don’t understand why the bedroom, which can be uncomfortably hot at night with the heater off and the window open can be eerily cool at noon, with the heater on, and the window closed. There are also baby’s stories, the child in the night (unsolved), and the basketball gnomes (solved), the shower shaving mirror incident (unsolved) or the…but I will leave those to her telling.

So do we open all the doors and windows, burn the cedar and sage, and from the back of the house work our way to the front, politely asking they or he or she to move on? Or put it off for a little while? Or is there another option?