We found the apartment together one weekend during the spring time last year. I was in town for three days, flying back to Chicago on Sunday night, so we needed to find an apartment in a pretty short time frame.
The apartment we chose was a part of a complex distinguished by the large, old trees that are scattered throughout its parking lot, bulging up from the pavement and hovering over the lot – remnants of the land before it was developed into a housing complex. We chose a unit that had a small balcony overlooking a thickly wooded patch of land that’s used as a rain drainage area. On the second floor, we can sit on our balcony with our feet at the treetops and feel as though we are tucked into our own private treehouse, far from the city.
We rotated living at the apartment throughout the summer while we planned our wedding and I looked for work. He lived there the first half of the summer, and I moved in about a month before our wedding day, while he stayed at a friend’s house.
We took turns unpacking boxes of things that we had acquired in our singleness, things that would soon become our mutual possessions, whether we liked it or not 🙂
Slowly we arranged the rooms: kitchen, bedrooms, and living room. The piano was the barycenter of the living room, with everything orbiting around it. As we received wedding gifts via mail for weeks, we unwrapped those with oohs and ahhs, and excitedly found places for them across the apartment. We quickly filled cabinets and closets and shelves that were otherwise bare. We bought a bed, or rather had one gifted to us. And soon, the apartment shaped up to be a place that was comfortable, simple, and most importantly: home. Our first.
As I think now about our first home together, I am reminded of many memories, which individually seem mundane or insignificant. In concert though, they form a great harmony of memories:
The rug by the oven, though nothing special, has one distinct, dark blue stain on its white background amidst the colorful orange flowers. It’s the stain of a blueberry I dropped when I excitedly tried to serve out two dishes of a blueberry cobbler I made last summer. I was so excited about how yummy it looked that I burnt myself and dropped a blueberry onto the rug. We laughed about it together, and now that blueberry cobbler is one of our favorite summertime desserts.
The big red couch we bought as our first major purchase together. I was sitting on that couch one evening when Ben came home and tackled me with a hug. We laid there giggling and kissing unabashedly. When we settled down from the laughing and kissing, I told Ben was offered a job, finally, and he hugged me even tighter. We filled up the room with our happiness.
The small brown table in the corner by the kitchen, we got from Ben’s grandmother. On that table, we set up our thousand-piece puzzles every few months. We’ve spent many evenings huddled around that table, chipping away at some puzzle, chatting casually and sipping a sparkling water together. We’ve never owned a television, and that feels perfectly normal to us, especially with a dedicated puzzle table.
In the guest bedroom, we set up a bed and some shelves. We filled the closet with some of our miscellaneous items. We excitedly hosted people for weekend or overnight visits. And then in January, just about three months into marriage, one of Ben’s brothers moved in as our roommate. We shifted some stuff around, including some of our routines and newly formed habits, and gladly welcomed someone into our home. Such was the purpose of renting a place with an extra room, but who would’ve thought we’d use it so soon!
And of course, our bedroom. Though small and simply furnished, it was a room bursting with sacrality. Shut off from the rest of the apartment, the rest of the world, there we had so many intimate moments. I’m not just talking about those intimate moments. I’m also talking about the times we spent lying next to each other reading silently, or out loud to each other; the times we sat propped up against the headboard having intense, conflict-resolving conversations, always calm but often tearful; the time B gave me a backrub the night before my licensing exam, which was special because I was more nervous than I admitted and I needed to be calmed; and the time we literally laughed ourselves to sleep, about what I can’t totally remember. I just remember laughing so hard and then letting out a deep sigh and then drifting off to sleep with my head on Ben’s belly.
I’m thankful for our little apartment tucked into the trees. Here’s to another year or more of memories and moments that fill every room.
Becoming Anyole 