You May Ask Yourself, My God What Have I Done
Most of us who have scraped and finnagled our way into our brownstones know the feeling of awe that sets in that first time you’re alone in your house and you think, “Holy Shit!” Colin Harrison describes that moment 20-odd years ago in his essay this week in New York Magazine: We moved into our…
Most of us who have scraped and finnagled our way into our brownstones know the feeling of awe that sets in that first time you’re alone in your house and you think, “Holy Shit!” Colin Harrison describes that moment 20-odd years ago in his essay this week in New York Magazine:
We moved into our Brooklyn house, a big creaking brownstone in Park Slope. Four floors. Seven bedrooms, three baths. Seven mantels. Walnut detail throughout, never painted. Sure, it needed a little work: They all do. We were deliriously excited. This was our house now? In the hours just after the closing, my wife and I lay on the dusty parquet floor of the empty living room gazing up at the impossibly high ceilings. How would we fill this big house? How would we populate it? What life would we live that otherwise would never occur?
The Deal We Made [NY Magazine]
.. for how much money?
They bought it in 1989- although middle class ‘hood hardly the place it is today — and you’re asking about inheritance taxes….Just because its worth megabucks today I doubt was in league of inheritance tax territory back then.
And they certainly did not know how many years nana would continue — coulda been 10. How many of you would take in and care for elderly relative when in your 20’s?
That shit is Real! SAY WORD. Who has not made a “mutually beneficial” deal or an arrangememt that had alterior motives? The author brings us into is inner conflict and some of his loathsome thoughts. That’s what makes it compelling.
It’s not like Nana didn’t get anything in the bargain. She got attention and care from her family as best as they could deliver. And it had to be some what satisfying to her that she got to see another generation carry on.
Even when you love someone deeply: an aging parent, a child, a dependant friend, attending to their needs on a constant basis will bring out some ugly thoughts.
CH just put it out there, and has judging from the number of post here; Struck a nerve. Pretty good for something written along time ago.
I read the comments above before I read the article, expecting the worst. Then I read the article. How can so many of you be so cold? I found the article to be compassionate and honest and heartbreaking. It’s clear that Colin Harrison is well aware of his Faustian bargain and remains somewhat haunted by it to this day. These are good people, and this wasn’t so much a house-for-grandma transaction as a house-for-baby transaction. Okay, maybe only Kathryn Harrison with her complicated emotional history could agree to that. But keep in mind that these people were in their 20s at the time! Taking care of two people in diapers, as Harrison’s mother noted. What choices did you make in your 20s that, in retrospect, you might now regret, or question, or do differently with the benefit of wisdom and hindsight? Nana would have had heart failure, would have been tied to her wheelchair (or, as another commenter noted, kept in bed all the time), would have died as we all must, if she’d stayed in Los Angeles. At least she had two good years with her beloved granddaughter, got to witness the birth of her great-granddaughter, didn’t kill anyone behind the wheel of her car, and didn’t die alone and helpless in her crumbling L.A. house. And the Harrisons, now the parents of three thriving children, have a wonderful home in a wonderful neighborhood in the best city in the world, creating a life for their children that Kathryn Harrison — with all she’s been through — could barely have dreamed possible. Who among us hasn’t had to make hard choices to build our careers, or to create homes for our families, or to help out sometimes-ungrateful loved ones? I think sharing this story with the world was brave, and the story is emblematic of the types of choices we all have to make in modern America.
I’m the one who posted the address. My sentiments exactly, poster of 9:03pm! They are a very, very public couple by literary standards. Besides, I’m sure others besides me quickly did an Acris on them. I am just not embarassed to confess it!
Wait a minute — this is the most self-confessional literary couple in park slope, if not the world. she wrote a best-seller about having an affair, as an adult, with her father, for god’s sake. (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0380731479/104-1087993-7520715?v=glance&n=283155) And good for her. But now it’s suddenly an intrusion on these “private people” (like ourselves?!) to publish an address that’s available to anyone with an Internet connection?
This has gotten out of hand. I lived next door to these people for a while and I would like to say, for the record, that they were an extremely nice couple with three beautiful children. Having side to side backyards, we saw quite a bit of each other, and they were always such caring, involved parents and truly seemed to respect each other and their children.
They are willing to admit that they did not have fairlytale childhoods or young adulthoods (including, with respect to her, being raised by someone who sounded like she was a difficult, nasty, not so lovable person her whole life – not just senile and slipping). They are willing to admit that they had to make some hard decisions in their lives. They are willing to discuss the issues they faced and the decisions they made openly and honestly, even if their decisions were not main stream and even though they must know they will be torn apart by some, like many of those on this site.
They have managed to create a loving, open, family environment despite some hard beginnings. In addition, due to their openness and honesty, their children will probably be much more willing to face the hardships in their lives and admit their flaws, instead of pretending bad things don’t happen and everyone is perfect. Just my 2 cents.
EEEEEEWWWWWW
What is really creepy is you!
according to property shark, assessed value is $1.8 mil. Looks like they made a pretty penny off of nana…