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 James Morgan
In our final Spring at 501 Holly, Beth planted sunflowers in the patch of
ground where our compost used to be. The flowers did well there, and by July
some of them were ten feet tall and leaning, their stalks like small trees. I
went out and tied the most precarious ones to slats in the old wooden fence.
 This
garden grew from many different packs of seeds, so we had regular golden sunflowers
sprouting among paler-petaled cousins right next to a clump of giant flowers
with striped faces that reminded me of tigers. In the center of it all was one
tall brooding blossom that was nearly black: Not quite a sunflower; more an eclipse-of-the-sun
flower.
As
the summer progressed, this corner of the yard became transformed into something
magical. We found ourselves staring  at it from all possible angles—from
the side steps off the
kitchen, from the secluded back patio, from the chairs near the bird bath, from
the front hill where Holly deadends into Lee. We studied it in the early morning,
with the flowers silhouetted against the sun, and then again as shafts of late-day
light caught the color surrounding every big brown staring eye. In time, I came
to think of this garden as a gently swaying sweet-faced chorus whose true purpose
in life was to help us say farewell to the house we’ve
called  home for 13 years.
In
1996, I wrote a book called If These Walls Had Ears.
It’s the
story of the 20th century told through the struggles of the eight families who’ve
lived in this one Craftsman bungalow at 501 Holly. After researching the lives
that had been played out within these walls, I wrote that I could walk into any
room in this house and see it in multiple dimensions: “This
is where the Armours danced the  fox-trot
during the Roaring Twenties; this is where Ruth Murphree’s heart was broken
when she learned her 16-year-old daughter had eloped during Central High’s
lost year; this is where the roller-skating transvestite hippies glided in their
giddy circle throughout the downstairs; this is the precise spot where the floor
caved in and took the Landers’s
marriage with it…”
I
don’t see that way much anymore. Many scenes from the other families have
faded in my mind, which I suppose isn’t  surprising. The surprise is that
so many vignettes of our own family saga have blended into the overall fog. Sometimes
I look at photographs and can’t believe it’s us. My stepdaughters,
Blair and Bret, were ages 8 and 5 when we moved here. Now they’re 21 and
18. The other day I drove past the Chuck E Cheese in North Little
Rock and had a flash of young children diving into a pool of colored balls. I
hadn’t thought about that in years. But there it was, filed away in my
unconscious, a  snapshot of our everyday life at 501 Holly. On the same psychic
roll would be pictures of Beth and me at teacher meetings, doing last-minute
Christmas shopping at Toys ‘R’ Us, me driving babysitters home at
midnight, Beth delving into her amazing upstairs closet for the perfect birthday-party
gift, and innumerable supper stand-offs over who was, or wasn’t, going
to eat her vegetables.
A
movie producer once explained to me—very patiently, considering—that “Movies
are real life with  the boring parts taken out.” The everyday routine in
a house doesn’t usually add up to action-hero material, and isn’t
that the whole idea of making a home? On the other hand—and especially
for a pair of writers who both live and work within the four walls—there’s
a certain danger in wrapping yourself too tightly in the great goosedown comforter
that is domesticity. Some days you wake up and you can hardly move your arms
and legs.
Beth
was the first to bring it up. For years she’s thought we needed a change.
Maybe, she said, we should be nearer New  York City, where among other things
we might enjoy more frequent opportunities for separating publishers and editors
from their money. But the time was never right. We still had daughters at home,
and besides, nothing big had happened to cause us to need to move there (so went
our thinking). Then there was Little Rock—so easy to live in, so receptive
to our roots. And, finally, how could we ever sell our wonderful house?
I
can’t recall the exact moment of epiphany. It was long after Beth sowed
 the sunflowers, back in the spring. It was even after we celebrated her mother’s
birthday on June 8. Whenever it was, it was as clear as the stars on a winter
night. There was almost alignment: Last daughter leaving for college…a
commissioned book project taking us to France for a couple of months…a
hint of freedom beckoning. But then
there was this other thing—this
house. It was a lot to let go of—13 years of living and growing together
as a family. That was counterbalanced by the staggering weight of 13 years of
working, borrowing,  stretching, striving. We
decided it was time.
The book is to be called Chasing
Matisse, though it might as well
be titled Chasing Beth. She’s wanted to live abroad since the
first time she traveled there, nearly
three decades ago. She gave me this idea, told me it was the book I had been
waiting for, and I knew she was right. Several publishers agreed.
So this summer
we’ve been packing boxes. It hasn’t been  easy.
There have been moments of second-guessing. There are dear friends we’re
already missing. There are memories of nights on the front porch that we can
hardly bear to move beyond.
But
seeing freshly is a theme in this book I’m setting out to do, and during
our packing, I’ve found myself straining to see this house in that clear
new way I did when we first moved here. So many views have become habit: When
I see the pink morning glow in  the Geranium Room, I know it’s 8:30. When
I spot the square of sun on the guest room table, it’s 10:30. When my pale
yellow office shimmers like a veil of Chinese silk, it’s no doubt half
past four.
No
matter how hard I squint, I can’t help it: The fresh view is of Beth’s
sunflowers—tall, alert, eyes wide atop strong stalks, trained on the horizon
like periscopes.
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