Harriet's House

I was scrolling through my writing file last night when I found this story. I wrote it in advance of the purchase of the house with my horrid-ex. I wrote it anticpating the house that we would buy for our family. Interestingly, reading it yesterday, I realized that the house we bought was not at all the house described in this story. The house we bought was a very nice house, but it had a shared laneway and no yard at all. It wasn't the house I described in this story. Incredibly, the house I described in this story is pretty much the house I have now, which seems uncanny. It makes me think that we know more than we are able to acknowledge . . . that perhaps I do have intuition and I can trust it to guide me through what seems impassable.

"Harriet’s House"

When Harriet was born, her parents lived in a big apartment in an old building. It had stained glass windows, large rooms, wide hallways, and hardwood floors. It was beautiful. But when Harriet came home from the hospital, her parents realized that the apartment was no place for a baby.

Music blared from the apartment below them. Dogs barked from the apartment above them. Poor Harriet couldn’t sleep! It didn’t take long before her parents decided to move. They wanted Harriet to live in a quiet house where she could have her own room and a yard. Most of all, they wanted Harriet to be able to sleep.

Harriet’s parents began to look for a house, but it wasn’t easy to find one.
They looked at one house that was far too small. Another one was far too narrow and tall.
Still another was far too big (and expensive). Her parents took Harriet along with them too see the houses, but she was still a baby and couldn’t tell them what she thought. While they looked and looked, she waited.

Except one day, at one house, Harriet waved her arms and cried, “Hey!”

Her parents jumped. They looked at Harriet.

“Did you hear that?” said her father.

“I did,” replied her mother.

Harriet’s parents didn’t expect to hear from Harriet again, because she was still a baby. They looked around the house one more time, and as they did they realized that it wasn’t too small. It wasn’t too tall. It wasn’t too big, and it wasn’t too expensive. It had big glass windows, large rooms, a wide hallways, and hardwood floors. It was almost like their apartment. Except that this house had something special -- a big back yard.
While Harriet’s parents looked and looked, Harriet did too. She waved her baby arms.

“Do you like it?” asked Harriet’s mother.

“Could you live here?” asked Harriet’s father.

They waited to see what Harriet would do. It was so quiet in the house, and so familiar, and her arms were so sore from waving them, that after giving her parents a big baby smile, Harriet fell asleep.

“She likes it,” said her father.

“She can sleep here,” agreed her mother.

And they decided right then that this was the house for them.

Harriet was happy in her new house. There was no music blaring below her. There were no dogs barking above her. Harriet could sleep. And she did, most of the time, because she was still a baby.