Pretty Houses

As I was walking my dog on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I noticed something that I have long suspected, but have never been able to confirm.

I live in one of prettiest neighborhoods in the city of Pittsburgh (some would argue the prettiest, but I would disagree). The houses are generally old, and impeccably well maintained. Actually, "maintained" is the wrong word. "Primped" is closer to the word I am looking for, but still not right. Anyway, the houses are not just maintained, they are a step above maintenance. To me, maintenance implies fixing things when they break, mowing your lawn, keeping the trim painted, taking out your garbage - things of that nature.

The owners of these houses go beyond maintenance, though. They hire landscapers, many hire landscape architects (and anyone who knows anything about landscaping doesn't need to see a truck outside of a house to see the difference between amateur and professional yard design*), owners are constantly renovating or remodeling, porch furniture is always being added or removed, holiday decorations are perfect (*cough* almost as if a professional selected them), and people are rarely enjoying the fine house on which they spend so much money and time.

It's expensive to live here. People say they want to live here. But after all is said and done, I'm not sure very many people actually enjoy living here.

There isn't much of a neighborhood feel in this neighborhood of mine. There are plenty of people in the streets, but none of them are particularly friendly. It's difficult to strike up a conversation with your neighbors (I've encountered one exception, a family of transplants, who, after living here for a few years, have decided to transplant themselves right into another neighborhood in the city).

One time, while I was walking home from a run in the evening, I apparently frightened a woman walking her dog so much so that she felt it was necessary to cross to the other side of the street while I passed (and crossed back over after I was gone)**.

This is a far cry from my old neighborhood. My old neighborhood was ugly to all except two kinds of people: the immigrants who'd built it (and were really still imagining it in its glory days), and people like me who, hokey as it sounds/is, can find beauty anywhere. The houses were mostly run-down and ugly. Slum lords did the bare minimum only to ensure that they would pass inspections. Almost all of the rental properties were disgusting and soggy and cracked. It was cheap to live there, and that fact was written out in the peeling paint and sagging gutters of the houses.

But I had friends in my old neighborhood. I knew my neighbors' names, and some of their stories. I talked with Jimmy about his old Irish Setter, Lady, and the Pirates' teen-aged losing record; I talked with Chester and Angela about gardening, and brought them their newspapers when their legs started to fail them; I shared cake and tea with Rose - I talked with her, I planted her tomatoes in the summer, I knew her children's names and faces, I met her grandchildren when they visited, I checked on her when the power went out, and I knew how and when her husband died. I shoveled all of their sidewalks when snow fell. I didn't see any of this as a matter of a pride. I saw it as my way of expressing my thanks for living around people who cared about me, and would take the time to talk to me.

I think I also saw it as showing respect for people who would not abandon their home, despite the broken glass, and scattered garbage, and occasional gunfire. Maybe I even saw my actions as a way of telling them that there was still something there worth holding on to.

Returning to last Wednesday: As I rounded the bend to my block, I was struck by its emptiness. My usually filled street was almost devoid of parked cars. I had nearly asked myself where everyone had gone when I realized that everyone had gone home for the holidays. I stopped shortly after I reached this obvious conclusion. If everyone (including me) goes home for the holidays, then what do the people who live here call this place? I don't know, but the obvious answer is, not home.

I have this theory that too much "pretty" in a house, or a neighborhood, or a city, is indicative of a certain kind of artificiality. To give you an example, I often say that NoVa has no soul***. The roots are shallow there, if present at all. I walk through my neighborhood now and I don't see roots. All of the histories and stories have been stripped and sanded out of these houses, and the people who live here haven't lived here long enough to create their own stories (and probably won't, either).

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the human soul isn't always a pretty thing. There is a lot of ugliness inherent in humanity - and if not ugliness, then certainly turmoil and pain. And I think this is evident, like it or not, in any real home. A complicated soul, like a complicated home or neighborhood, gets bogged down with a little garbage every once in awhile.

I'm not saying that a true home has to be ugly; I'm saying that a true home isn't pretty all the time. And maybe people can't really make their own home until they accept, and even embrace, this idea.


* The owners of a specific house in my neighborhood purchased the empty lot behind their house, tore it to shreds, and commissioned a giant cascading stone staircase that descends from their house to the street behind them (the likes of which I have only encountered at large hotels).

** It's true that I don't wear matching tiny shorts and tops, the way most female runners in my neighborhood do. However, I don't think that my t-shirts, running shorts, and bandanna are all that intimidating. When this happened, I laughed at first. Then I was angry and hurt. Now I'm reassessing the way I feel others perceive me - I guess what they say is true: you can't be too careful. For all I know, one of her loved ones was maimed by a 20-something, mediocre female jogger.

*** As with everything, there are exceptions to this.