Home and Hardware

When I was 24 I moved to live with my grandmother in her house at the shore.  I had dreams of law school, and part of the plan was to stay with Gram while I made a home for myself in San Francisco. After WWII she and my grandfather had relocated from that city, bought some property down the coast, and built a hardware store from which they made their living and retirement.  My mom worked at that hardware store as a teen, and I think my dad did too, briefly, when they were courting.  By the time I got there it had changed hands a couple of times; in addition to hardware it now sold gourmet coffee to locals and was home to the only public fax machine for miles around.   When I stopped in to fax my resume’ for paralegal work, the man behind the counter offered me a coffee and a job.  And with that fragrant bitter cuppa, the trajectory of my life was changed.

I’d never really been away from home before, from the foothills of the Central Valley where I grew up, and the lure of this new lovely place by the ocean was strong.  I wanted to settle in.  To become part of the fabric that seemed so tightly woven here.  All very romantically Kerouac layered on Steinbeck, and a far cry from the dusty promise of legal research.  So I poured coffee.  From 7:30 to 3:30.  I got to know the locals by their orders of Fogbuster or Sumatra or Rainforest Nut.  I wrote hardware tabs for molly bolts and lug wrenches and lots of exterior rust-proof paint.  I met a boy and brought him home to meet my grandma.

She didn’t go out much, but at her house Gram would hold court, with the fog and ocean out the front window, the garden out the back.  Sitting in her easy chair by the fire, she would accept her visitors.  I spent some years here as the idea of law school faded, and too the romance with the aforementioned boy, and eventually my grandma faded as well. She didn’t want to leave her home, clinging stubbornly to her right to occupy this space. My parents spent months cajoling, plotting, threatening and pleading. Ultimately of course she had to go, had to make another home in an old folks’ place near my mom.

We held on to the property though.  It’s somewhere every member of my small family has called home, and its offerings of beach and coastal friends, small town charm and easy access to the city ensure its place in our collective familial heart.  It’s a high-maintenance love however.  Gram’s house on the coast is breaking apart from its perch on a fault. Much effort, constant upkeep, and multiple trips to the hardware store are required to keep it standing.  Caulking and tape, sandpaper and paint.  And coffee from the girl behind the bar.