An Attempt at an Answer
I am in love. Her eyes were as honey, her checks, alabaster. When I first saw her, it was early morning, and the skies were dark. I watched her lay still, almost silently breathing in and out. I saw how she drank in the lemon scented air. I withdrew and steadily and slowly walked silently down the path. An hour later, heart slightly pounding, and walking now with more boldness, I came to see if she waked. She opened her eyes and looked questioning out at the day, looking to see who had come in her dreams.
She lived five short blocks away; five long blocks away. A half mile as I counted it, two thousand five hundred steps, two thousand five hundred breaths. I read the day before that this is how the Romans came up with the second and the mile. Each second counts one stride, and a thousand mille seconds creates the mile. I tested this theory. I walked the five blocks five times a day, and back home again. I met all the houses in between, the yards of lavender and rosemary, the plaster arches framed by bright purple blooms, the dark quiet lawns. I listened to the hissing of the ground, as water sprayed from infinitesimally small pinpricks in underground hoses. During the day, a man replacing boards along two sides of an old wooden-shingled house called out, "Where do you go all day, what are you doing all day, walking back and forth? It's driving me crazy. I had to ask."
Today was the day she was mine. I didn't say to the moment, Stay, linger, you are so beautiful. Verweile doch, du bist so schoen. But instead I said, today was the day. "Today was." Always today, and always in the possessive past. It was the high bright heat of the early afternoon when she ducked her head and smiled at me, directly at me, and I thought, unbelieving, she was mine. We kept interrupting each other from the start, first one calling out, Look here, look at what I see, do you see what I see? And then the other calling, I remember you, isn't that funny, it's as if I remember you.
I told the women around the card table, the other three women, that's it been only a month since I first saw her. Heading home, where she waits for me, I remembered it's not yet been a month, it's short of a month, it's short of breaths. We have so many breaths to share yet, before it will be the next new dark moon. I planted a full, round, heart-shaped orange begonia for her. She surprised me by climbing up the withered brown tree, wrapping her slender arms like tendrils around its branches. I watched her relax in early evening, and I lit candles to soften the shadows growing around her.
I am in love with a house. It's becoming home. I am coming home.
Second person
The 29 Rules
Always leave the watering can half full. If the begonias are dust dry to the touch, drench the ground gently. Remember you're drenching the ground around the roots, not washing harshly the ground away from the roots. Walk in a circle past the yellow light streaming out of the kitchen window, and check the rosemary. Chances are it doesn't want any water, but it's good form to get in the habit of checking every so often. Regard the stringy succulent in its woven basket, and see if it's responding to the rich earth you fed it. Feel the lemon tree smile at you, blossom and green and ripe, all at once. There is no need to tiptoe; you are at home, remember that.
Don't leave lights on night; remember the street light shines all night through and shows the way at midnight if you awake and reach for your glass of water. Fluff the white downy comforter soon after you get up, else otherwise you might never get around to it. Take one step at a time, breathe one breath at a time. If you buy, say, a shovel on one day, lean it against the plaster wall near the tall blue pail. Another day you can dig a hole, two feet deep, enough room for the marjoram to spread its roots.
Take care of all the cords tying the house to the outside: the money to send to the bank, the bins to bring in from the street. At night, spread the brilliant midnight-blue cloth across the three wide windows facing the front, and close the window in your office. Look to see if anyone is calling for you or writing for you, and read in any chair you like. Don't ask yourself if it's OK to sit, knees bent upward, on the plastic blue lawn chair on the patio; it's OK. Notice that it's perfectly comfortable to read from there, and if you have to smoke, at least collect the ashes in a dish, and throw them afterwards in the bin.
Write your friends and tell them about it. Save the important papers. Let the newspapers lay strewn about until you feel like gathering them up and folding them into a pile. Feel free to walk around in shoes when you think you'll be going out again soon, and change into the orange washed-wool slippers when you think you'll be staying in a while. Take care of the looks-like-new wood floors, since it's easier to keep them up than to come from behind. Let the house show you how it's perfect, and let it be for a while. Take your time.
Third person
Moving In
She's like a bitch in heat. It's driving her crazy, it's driving her nuts. She's running around all day, all excited like to bursting. First it's one thing, then she's off to take care of another, pausing only long enough to drink long draughts from a thin cool glass of bubbling water. She can't keep track of the order she wants to do things; lucky it doesn't matter much. She claims to be on personal terms with most of the neighbors, which is just ludicrous, if you think about it. Just because Emily-the-gardener across the driveway takes all the moving boxes away so Emily can pack up her living room into her garage while her ceiling is being painted doesn't mean Emily's going to invite her to visit in the garden anytime soon. She needs to get a grip.
Thankfully she's settling down. She's keeping the place swept and dusted like a regular German housewife. I think her training in the convent has induced her to beat the rugs out in the back three times a week. She's ordered the pantry and papered the shelves. Extra racks in the garage hold leftover brackets, just in case there's ever anything she wants to hang on the walls in there. She pulled up the faded and dying and brown-headed zinnias and calculated that the only place she could plant succulents was under the electric meter, in a patch of forgotten earth that is not watered every night. She's gotten in the habit of riding rather than walking to buy groceries, but it doesn't take long either way. The black cats aren't spooked by her, but then again, they never were, even before she moved in. She really ought to consider locking the bike out back from time to time, but since no one but her goes back there, and it's inconceivable that anyone would, it seems a bit silly. It's like locking the bike against herself. That is quite inconvenient when she wants to quick run an errand.
Moving in probably takes at least six years, if not longer. It might take the whole time she lives there. It's hard to say if the house will grow around her, or if she'll grow around the house. Let's just say, she likes the house.