MIND MOVES:A home is a special space which holds the energy of its occupants when they are gone, writes MARIE MURRAY
THE POEM, The Empty House, by Vona Groarke, about a house adjusting to the absence of its occupants, has special salience in summertime. Summer is the time when houses are abandoned for life elsewhere: for mobile homes, for rented cottages, for BBs, hotels or trips away. Houses are locked and left. They begin their vigil until occupants return them to life and functionality.
This is the time when a house that is left empty settles into its own silence, its own shape and sounds and identity. There is something special about the way a house “waits” for its owners to return.
A house, a home, is a personal place, a special space. It holds the energy of its occupants when they are gone. It minds each room, the unmade bed, the shampoo fallen sideways on the bathtub, a discarded toothbrush, the robes on the door, the silent shower and perfumes stilled, distilling their scents into the quiet air.
In the wardrobes, clothes that were not chosen for the holidays hang immobile. Shoes lie higgledy-piggledy or in neat ordered rows. A scarf is draped over a chair in front of a dressing table on which silver mirror, brush and comb lie in stately readiness or a clutter of cosmetics cover the surface beside an open powder box that sends occasional wafts of powder into the air.
Clocks measure time, tick by tick by tick, into the silence until the occupants return.
Downstairs lies the post, avalanched inside the front door. There are letters and brochures and cards from other people who have also left their homes alone this summer.
In the kitchen the drip of a tap, the hum of a freezer, the open portholes of washing machines and tumblers and the almost empty fridge guarding a forgotten pint of milk.
There is surgical precision of kitchen utensils, the occasional gurgle in the sink and on the table one forgotten half-drunk cup of tea coalescing in a china cup.
The house is silent. Day and night enters its windows. Magazines lie open, images and words fixed on the page. The books on the shelves wait for the hand that loves them to lift them down again, read them and return them to their own places. In the meantime they stand together holding, untouched, the thoughts, emotions, and aspirations of those who wrote them.
The radio is still. The TV screen is a blackened window. The remote is in readiness nearby. The piano is undisturbed: no scales are hammered out, no sweet nocturnes or majestic sounds, nothing but still, unsmiling keys or a closed lid gathering dust and an open sheet of music sitting precariously on the stand waiting for interpretation.
Family photographs smile into the emptiness. Toys are forsaken and dolls lie with staring eyes. The house devoid of people is a quiet, a calm, a tranquil and enveloping place, dormant, anticipating its occupants’ return.
As people come home from holidays they enter a place that has been empty, that has stood there, patiently, awaiting their return. Floorboards have groaned. Staircases have been noiseless without the thread of feet upon their steps. Pipes have shuddered. Curtains have guarded windows that were sealed for the summer and no voices have echoed in the emptiness of the house.
In the shed, bicycles rested in the warmth of timber. Tools have waited for a craftsman’s hands. Pots of paint have sat in rows with telltale streaks from lid to base betraying the colours underneath their unsealed lids.
The lawnmower has been ready to cut the grass that grew exuberantly outside during its reprieve. In the garden, weeds have sprouted thickly. Some ivy has sneaked into the shed. The kennel is cold. The birdfeeder is empty, and disappointed wildlife are glad to see the occupants of the house return.
There is a new puddle where the gutter has dripped, the water barrel is full, flowers have bloomed and died and the geranium pots hold some blackened soggy petals among their vibrancy. The Montbrecia are in flower and robust. Rosemary has claimed more space. The grass is high and hedges are waving upwards and outwards over the garden wall. In contrast to the tranquil patience of the house awaiting its owners’ return, the garden has run wild while the owners were away.
Houses have a special stillness when they are empty. Each home has its own smell and individual secret sound. If you step into your home, alone, and stand absolutely still, you can hear it shuffle itself in recognition of your presence.
Clinical psychologist and author Marie Murray is director of the Student Counselling Services in UCD. Her collection of Irish Timesessays, Living our Times, published by Gill and Macmillan is now available in paperback