This painting of "Autumn Morning" by Grigorij Grigorjewitsch Mjassojedow, who lived from 1834–1911, according to Wikipedia, makes me think of the time when I lived in a condemned house during one autumn long ago. Autumn itself reminds me of this time in my life.
The house sat on a busy street near The University of Texas, but because it had been abandoned and had been officially "condemned" by the city, it also sat in its own little woods of trees and fallen limbs and brambles and leaves piled up every which way, droves of leaves, some of them wind-driven onto the porch and barricading the front door.
Three or four of us found the house, all empty and echoing, and then we found the landlord and struck a bargain with him: he would let us live in the house for free for a year, if, with our own resources, we brought the house back up to code again.
We did bring it back up to code and we did live in it for a year, but the landlord did not know that during those two or three months when we were working on the house, we were all living inside it. A little band of twenty-year-olds living in a house without running water and without electricity, for the city would not turn these utilities on until the house had passed inspection.
This is how we did it.
The old-fashioned watering can played a part in making this possible, or, in our case, my grandmother's old metal pitcher, which had a spout rather than a spray nozzle. I love this 1912 painting by Daniel Ridgway Knight, "Watering the Garden," because it captures the reverie that I feel when I remember bits and pieces of this particular time ~ I like how sometimes we can find a way to remember only the brightest moments of an experience and put the darker ones aside.
The main reason we were able to live in the condemned house without utilities is that we didn't live there without utilities. It turned out that we had the great good fortune to find ourselves next door to another rental house which housed a group of university students who needed help paying all the bills. So we offered to pay their water and electricity bills if they would let us run one hose and one extension cord from their house to our house.
Instant water and electricity! Hose water, of course, but still drinkable.
We ran a very long garden hose across the backyard, covering it with leaves all the way, to a spot just outside our one bathroom, up the wall, in through the window, and down into the tub.
We filled the tub with hose water. It was an old-fashioned four-footed tub, very similar to the one in this Carl Larsson painting, "Lisbeth Prepares a Bath," and equally as full of water. By dipping into the tub of water with my grandmother's old metal pitcher, we could fill the back of the toilet and flush the toilet, fill the sink and wash our faces, pour water over our heads at the sink and wash our hair, wash dishes in the sink, brush our teeth. We could take very cold baths or run next door for showers.
I wonder about those days now in a kind of amazement.
Sometimes I shake my head and think that I should have lived my life very differently. But a woman I know asked me once: if I could, would I really choose to not have those years? And when I think about having just this one year in this one house ever taken away from me, I have to accept that, no, I would not want to give up this otherworldly stretch of time in my life.
Here is the very pitcher itself. It is what I think is called vintage blue-speckled enameled metalware. I see it often in pioneer cookware and utensils. Mine is a battered old thing, about 12 inches high. It holds more water than I can carry nowadays, but I was stronger back then.
This old blue pitcher has moved with me all over the country. I don't know what my grandmother used it for. She was a tiny little person, and I can't see her carrying it full of water. I keep blue silk hydrangeas in it or sunflowers or dried autumnal grasses. Once it was full to the top with eucalyptus nuts. Sometimes I gather kindling in it for our chimenea and then I feel like a real pioneer lady myself.
The little matter of electricity in the condemned house proved to be more problematic. I will tell you about that tomorrow.
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