Having serious second thoughts about this Idaho business. I cannot believe that this morning I woke up to 70-degree cloudless weather, and willingly got on a plane to take me to this. Though saying “willing” might be a slight overstatement.
I am trying to put a good face on everything for Mom and Logan, but holy crap, it is miserable here. For the past few days Mom has been feeding us fantasies of our first real snowfall, and how we were going to make snowmen and snow angels and have snowball fights. I admit I was getting a teensy bit excited about going to this winter wonderland. Then we get off the plane and we’re greeted with slush. Dirty wet slush that gets in your shoes and soaks the bottoms of your jeans. And wind! I have never felt so much wind. It’s like being on a mountaintop even when you’re in the middle of downtown. Not that there *is* a downtown, really. Just one street with a few college bars I can’t set foot in. Plus an indie movie theater, an indie bookstore—Jesus, hasn’t anyone heard of chain stores here? Apparently Barnes and Noble hasn’t made it to the frontier.
Our new house is a big hulking gray monstrosity, which is what you get when you rent a place sight unseen from six states away. Though you could almost imagine it being kind of pretty, once upon a time, with the big wraparound porch and the little turret on one side. If it were in better shape, it might look like something out of a storybook. Inside, everything is centered around a big staircase, and there’s a massive room on the first floor that I guess was once a ballroom? Crazy. Mom and I agreed to leave that room empty because we would be, like, shouting at each other across it. There is a smaller room with a nice fireplace that I think we’ll make the living room. In the back is a kitchen, which is pretty small compared to our place back in California, though it does have a big pantry behind it. Then another couple of random rooms, one of which will be Mom’s study, and the others will inevitably fill up with junk, I bet.
It must have been a mansion when it was built, probably a million years ago, but now it’s just old and rickety. And drafty. They don’t seem to have heard of insulation here. The wind whistles through the walls so much that you can feel it indoors. Even with the heat all the way on and my heaviest sweater, it still feels like I’m standing outside. Except when I am outside, and it feels like I’m in Siberia. And so far the moving truck hasn’t arrived with our stuff yet, so in the meantime we are making do with just sleeping bags and air mattresses. Logan thinks camping indoors is awesome. Wish I could share his enthusiasm . . .
The house is on the outskirts of town, though to be honest that’s only about a mile from the, uh, inskirts of town. On one side it’s a normal street with other houses and cars and stuff, but you go around back and the town just ends. Normally don’t cities and towns sort of peter out, the houses getting farther apart from one another until eventually you are looking at open fields? Not here. Step out into the backyard and you can see for miles. Not that there’s anything to see.
Before I came, I spent some time looking up pictures of Idaho online, and there were all these super pretty landscapes of snowcapped mountains and crystal clear lakes. Well, that must be some other Idaho, because all we’ve got here are these weird little stubbly brown hills, extending out all the way to the horizon. And nothing on them—no houses, no trees, no roads, just the occasional broken-down barn, or the towering shape of a grain elevator outlined against the sky. Oh, and the sky here isn’t blue. It isn’t even gray. It’s pure white like cotton, and it seems to go on forever. Makes the whole world feel sort of muffled.
That’s what I see from my window. At first I wanted the room at the front of the house, under the turret, but Logan claimed it on his run through. Mom shot a look over at me—on the plane she had promised me first dibs on the rooms, since I’m older (and maybe since I’d been whining about the move)—but it didn’t feel right pulling rank. Not when Logan seemed so excited. Plus, there was something weird about that room. I don’t know what it was, but the minute I walked in, I felt this sort of buzzing, like a vibration coming up through the floor, or maybe through the air even. It set my teeth on edge, and after just a few minutes helping Logan dust the place, I had a bit of a headache. I wonder if there’s some kind of transformer or something just outside? But Logan and Mom didn’t seem to notice it.
Anyway, after that I was just as happy to pick a room at the back of the house, even if it’s a little smaller and looks out over those endless brown hills.