A House on the Prairie

With all our belongings in storage and we stuck in an apartment in Glenview, unable to find a house to live in, I was beginning to feel like Mr. Biswas in Naipaul’s classic "A House for Mr. Biswas." The character in the novel had no place of his own, but then gets married and moves in to his wife’s family home. Only difference, I was married already.

We had relocated to Chicago just before the winter from the nation’s capital. The routine of trudging out in the cold with real estate agents was beginning to get monotonous. Besides, the young man with us was looking to stretch his limbs and the corridor in the apartment building seemed to be narrowing faster with his growing stride.

When my wife would look hapless after a long day of house search, I would borrow from Naipaul and murmur “Fate. There is nothing we can do about it.”

We were told early on to look out west, in Barrington. But, having lived on both coasts and close to water, we would get up on grim, cold Saturday mornings and go looking for houses as close to Lake Michigan as we could afford. This changed when a real estate agent urged me to take a look at a few houses she had pulled in Barrington.

The rest happened quickly. We ended up liking a large old house with a lot of character (and work!) that, from the outside, looked like a barn being held loosely by trees. An overdone backyard with a Monet setting and a secluded large study with its own patio did the trick. We moved in.

After spending a few restless nights in the new house, I ran in to that moment when a house starts to feel like home. One fine morning, walking out of the garage, I noticed a lake in my posterior and another in the front. I stopped and looked at the marvel ahead of me. A bright orange sun suspended in front was lazily picking up its rays from the water and through the sunken cleavage between two large houses. Somehow, somewhere that did it. Gradually, thereafter, the house and the surroundings started to feel like a place to live in.

Since then, I have seen deer hiding behind trees, birds painted with color straight out of a child’s crayon book, rabbits not able to overcome their shyness, and squirrel defying gravity under tree branches. Around the neighborhood, I have walked by play-sets adorned with laughing, crying children. I have driven by lithe men and women in colored shirts, helmeted heads down on road bikes. Casual walks have led to calm duck filled lakes interrupted only by loud frog calls, enough to alert a Frenchman’s gastronomical desires.

This was our second summer but it felt like the first one. Last year’s summer months are a haze caused by movers unloading trucks, time spent peering through cardboard boxes, and venturing out in search of the nearest grocery store and coffee shop.

Everywhere we have lived, we have looked for a downtown that has a lived in feeling and a few shops one can sift through, over and over again, without getting bored. I knew I had found it in our new community once I made it to town, the part of Barrington downtown off of Hough Street towards East Lake Street. The choice of two coffee shops, at each end, where one can lazily read the newspaper, unbothered, while watching people met my expectations. A stop by the Bagel place or the elaborate breakfast restaurant next doors has proven to be a great prelude to a midday visit at the eclectic wine store across the street.

This year, Memorial day and then Independence day made us do what we had never done in places we lived in the past—attend the day’s parade. Uniformed veterans in convertibles accompanied by bands on memorial day and fire engines with their sing-song sirens on the 4th of July were an experience worth repeating next year, especially for the young man on my shoulders.

The summer also put me out on the bicycle pedaling through neighborhoods and scattered lake communities. A spot under a tree overlooking a patch of water, where birds flocked, proved to be a perfect resting stop to go through the soiled pages of Tolstoy’s enormously depressing "The Cossacks." On another day, I made it to a large farmer’s market on Higgins and picked up the sweetest corn ever harvested.

Yesterday afternoon, the young man and I rode our bikes around a lake and then dropped pebbles in the water and watched the ripples create perfectly formed concentric circles. Then, we climbed large rocks and hung off of tree branches. The young man plucked leaves and laid them out in a pattern on the ground. I noticed that the leaves had a light shade of orange and were stiff.

This evening, as I look out my window, the hammock looks lazy and in solitude, the stripped down corn in the bird feed is a reminder to replenish perhaps for one more time, and to see a rabbit burrowing is another reminder that the first frost may be approaching.

The weeks ahead seem rushed as everyone makes an attempt to enjoy the last few days of good weather. We are still receiving invitations for birthday parties being planned outside in hope of a warm afternoon, friends are planning pumpkin picking trips and hay rides for children.

In "A house for Mr. Biswas," Naipaul describes his character as “a wanderer with no place he could call his own.”

Tonight, I plan to put Naipaul’s classic away in the deepest confines of my bookshelf.