House

Last night I finished reading a small book that pleased me greatly called "The House On Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros. I share from the blurb on back: "Told in a series of vignettes stunning for their eloquence...sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous, The House On Mango Street tells the story of Esperanza Cordero, whoseneighborhood is one of harsh realities and harsh beauty. Esperanza doesn't want to belong--not to her rundown neighborhood, and not to the low expectations the world has for her. Esperanza's story is that of a young girl coming into her power, and inventing for herself what she will become." There is one vignette I want to share (I was thinking of Suki when I read it but it fits for me too): "House of My Own Not a flat. Not an apartment in back. Not a man's house. Not a daddy's. A house all my own. With my porch and my pillow, my pretty purple petunias. My books and my stories. My two shoes waiting beside the bed. Nobody to shake a stick at. Nobody's garbage to pick up after. Only a house quiet as snow, a space for myself to go, clean as paper before the poem." This month we paid off the last mortgage payment on our house. The house we first purchased in 1988. In 1988 the price on the house seemed astronomical to me. More money than I could imagine. Paying it off did not seem possible. Making the mortgage payments was a stretch of the imagination. But somehow we did it. And now it is OURS. I am still in a state of disbelief. Nevermind that the economy in its present state has devalued this house to almost what the asking price was, falling from a height that we were so excited about only a year ago. It is ours. We own it. No more house payments. Wow. And we may live long enough to see the value rise again. Who knows? But for now I am satisfied beyond my wildest dreams. I am a home owner. It is good. It is OURS.