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06/02/08 |
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Kaisa’s HouseAs she runs out the door, my daughter yells: ‘I’ll be at Kaisa’s!’ Of course. We’re used to hearing that. It seems she’s always at Kaisa’s. # # When I was a kid we lived in a big old house right smack in the middle of town, and it was the middle point between all of my friends’ houses. We always had a lot of people coming and going, which was OK with my parents, and they never really noticed if there were some extras. It was not a rich or fancy house, but it was very comfortable. For all of those reasons my house was where my friends and I usually hung out. It’s where we all met before going somewhere, it’s where we went late at night if we were hungry and wanted something to eat. There were times my friends came over and I wasn’t even there. I always thought I would have a house like that too. But my kids are most often at their friends’ houses. Every once in awhile they show up at our place, but it doesn’t seem like the place to hang out. I keep wondering why. Is it because I talk funny? My daughter seems to be getting over her stage of being embarrassed by me, but the fact is that I speak Finnish with a funny accent and make a lot of mistakes. My stepdaugher’s friends spent a lot of time at our place this summer, but I speak English with them. And my son’s friend Edgar comes over a lot, but his parents are also foreign so maybe he’s more used to it. Or is it because we eat funny food? I’ll never forget when my daugher’s friend Sally was overnight at our house. When her mom came to get her in the morning, we were sitting there eating a big breakfast of pancakes and bacon. She asked, ‘Pancakes? For breakfast?’ Then again maybe that’s something that gets more positive as the kids get older. My daughter called me up a couple of weeks ago and asked if 2 of her friends could have dinner at our place. I said OK, but we’re eating macaroni and cheese and I’m sure they’ve never had that before. She said, ‘No, they haven’t had it before. That’s why they want to come!’ Or is it our house? The center of the house – living room, kitchen, and front hall – is where everyone is, all the time. If you want to be alone, there’s only your own bedroom. Our house is also not in a very central place, at least for my daugher’s friends. Kaisa’s house, like my house when I was young, is right in the middle of all of them. But there must be something else about Kaisa’s house that makes it a good place to be. Something that makes it comfortable. # # I have to admit that I am a bit jealous of Kaisa’s mom. She gets to see the gang of girls often and not just when she’s driving them around. It makes me wonder about my friends’ parents when I was young – did they wish we would go to their houses more often? But I am also thankful to Kaisa’s parents. I’m thankful that there is a house which is so comfortable that the girls like to hang out there instead of in the streets. I just always thought that house would be mine.
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