The meaning of ivy

No matter how practical, if you are a pretender at first you remain a pretender forever. And a pretender is influenced by mood. Each part of my house is furnished not with bare fabric and tangible wood, but with echoes of other worlds and times. Concepts I've assimilated from books and movies cast their interpretation on all around me.

My window panes are old. Inefficient for heating, and so practically inconvenient. But seen from the outside, within a certain frame of vision, they make my house look distinctively not-new, from an era when a visitor's hat might be reflected in the pane.

My garage has ivy climbing the white bricks. The landlord threatens to tear it down, but for now it lends a distinctively academic, settled, and pastoral air to the garage wall.

My porch is screened in and framed by natural wood, with a hammock and a citronella candle. At dusk, it is easy to be transported to a colonial British province, where the netting keeps out malaria carrying pestilences, and the rustling in the trees are not squirrels, but monkeys.

Under my garage is a dank, spidery cellar where I will not set foot. The cellar is completely enclosed in cement, and contains bunk bed frames. It was, evidently, once a fall out shelter. Seeing something like this, in my own backyard, gives my stomach butterflies as I drop into a time where not only might a bomb explode in the middle of Missouri, but one might escape from it ten feet underground.

For some, references to other places and times must not be necessary or desirable. La-Z-Boy furniture is a singular abomination of 21st century America. The large tan boxes in the suburbs do not reflect any previous human dwellings, except those of a homeless people living in a much smaller tan boxes. But the enduring popularity of Pottery Barn, Mission style furniture, and antiquing indicates a consumer yen for more than comfort and practicality.