There’s a scene in Frank Capra’s iconic film, It’s A Wonderful Life, when George Bailey and Mary Hatch stroll by the old Granville house, (an example of a Second Empire Victorian). The abandoned house is rotting. Yet,
“I love that old house. I want to live in it,” Mary says, eyes shining.
“I wouldn’t live in it if I were a ghost,” says George, grimacing in disgust and bafflement.
I love adventure tales. Stories with larger-than-life heroes, villains, and those unforgettable, morally gray characters in between. Anyone else find they can’t resist a pirate with a heart of gold?
Give me swashbucklers sailing the high seas, explorers in search of treasure, lifesavers battling storms. Clever escapes. Daring rescues. Bold battles.
Give me scenes that crackle with the potential for disaster or triumph as characters face the unexpected before returning home—literally or metaphorically—changed in some way. For no matter where the adventure happens or what type of trial the hero faces, one thing is certain: things don’t go as planned.
And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles. —Francis Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
A secret garden.
Can there be anything more tantalizing? The very idea imbues the toil of gardening with romance and is one reason why that Gothic tale, beloved in my girlhood, still captivates me. So, imagine my delight when I discovered the thorny stalks of a rose while battling weeds and prickly vines behind our Victorian house. I think my young son could sense my excitement, and he called it “the secret rose.”
What color would it bloom? we wondered, anticipation buzzing.
“Have you not wondered at our extreme difficulty in finding our way around?...Time after time we choose the wrong doors, the room we want eludes us.”—Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House.
My house has rooms that play hide and seek with me. Rooms that are so obvious from the outside of the house. One has floor-to-ceiling bay windows and the other, literally projects off the house, having once been a large balcony. Yet, once inside, the house hides them.
I remember when we first moved in, I often found myself walking in circles looking for a room I couldn’t find, but knew was there. An unsettling feeling, especially for a new mother. Imagine, for a moment, the idea of feeling lost at home. Yet, I’ve never felt frightened, for unlike Hill House with dark, snaring intentions, my home merely teases me like a capricious child.
It’s like this—up the turning stairs, a narrow passageway branches off the main corridor and leads to my writing room. Beyond, the little hall opens to an alcove with a long, mullioned window. This nook deceives me into thinking it’s a dead end. From the hallway, the room is hidden from view, until I round the corner and step deeper into the alcove. Sometimes, I still get tingles of excitement when I find it.
Here we are at the end of March—a month the poet Swinburne describes as “master of winds, bright minstrel, and marshal of storms.” *
Poets have been writing about the month of March for centuries—Wordsworth, Bryant, Dickinson, Swinburne, Neruda—whispering nuanced lines that tug at my thoughts and shape my daydreams.
My house is a poet.
I stand in the living room before bay windows much bigger than me. Below, the woolen mill’s hoary, industrial steam puffs and curls like the color of a sheep’s fleece. While over the naked hills, the March light shines soft and pink. A tease of blooms still asleep in flower beds.
But these windows have been awake and watching for 142 years. They’ve seen many gleaming skies—undeceived. For their glass is cold with drafts that whisper, remember them.
I’m Maria—writer of atmospheric, Gothic stories and lover of old houses. Despite their endless surprises (or perhaps because of them), I feel most at home living in an old house. They’re an adventure. A daily oxymoron: stalwart and quirky; enduring and unpredictable.
Inspiring and frustrating and not always comfortable, they’ve shaped and nurtured me, as I’ve cared for them.
