birdart lore | "The Beloved Family Groverhaus"

Back in 2004, for reasons I've either forgotten or am not privy to, my late mother decided to build an entire "playhouse" in our backyard for me to play in. Effectively, it was a small, insulated shed equipped with electricity, an aircon, and a few miniature rooms plus a loft.

I remember very little about my childhood for Certain Reasons, but this playhouse has always stood out to me as one of my most vivid early memories. I remember its construction—I watched that thing slowly grow from a small clearing, to a foundation, to a stud frame, to beyond. I remember that, at any point, I'd be able to look out the backyard window and check its progress.

I would, of course, frequently go outside to ogle at my strangely-behaving mother, who had suddenly started to build a house for me. As any 4-year-old getting her own house would be, I was beyond excited. I made sure to let Ms. Art know that it was important to me that it had all the usual features of a house: wall plugs, a mailbox, the little numbers that were on the front of all the other houses, a trash can, a door with a peephole, etc. Believe it or not, my opinions on building construction were no more complicated than "that pink stuff in the walls looks soft and yummy."

One of my most vivid memories is from a day when my mother was screwing down the stud frames. She needed someone to hold up one of the walls so she could screw it in, so she recruited me to do it. Hesitantly, I grabbed it and held on as best as I could. However, perhaps predictably, I lost balance for whatever reason, and I watched as the entire wall slowly started to fall over—on me. I heard my mother's shouts turn from frustrated to panicked as my ape instinct suddenly kicked in, and I bolted for my life from the structure several times my height that now bore down and threatened to crush me. Eventually, I heard it crash behind me, and relief waved over my body. That was the only time my mother asked me to hold up a wall.

Upon walking in to the birdhaus, one would find a cozy interior with 4 "rooms" all immediately visible. The main tiled area had little in the way of furnishings, barring a standing lamp, some geometric wall art, and a painted "fireplace" just to the left. The right window had an AC unit running off of power diverted from the main house in a setup apparently devised by my step-grandfather.

To the delight of Little Birdart, the playhouse really was a little house of its own. It was perfectly comfortable to exist in, even in extreme weather. One time, it started pouring rain while my mother and I were sitting inside. We didn't want to go out into the rain, so we sort of mutually decided to wait it out. We sat out there and had a nice, quiet moment for what felt like an hour, but was probably less. Unfortunately, the rain only got worse as time went on, so we eventually just bit the bullet and ran back to the main house.

To the right was a "kitchen," which I somehow have no good photos of. Two plastic chairs sat in this room, and, at some point, I must have brought a toy microwave and some prop food in there, because I remember becoming upset when a visiting friend once "microwaved" an entire "apple." Whichever adult was with us then had to explain to me that apples could, in fact, be cooked. I dunno, but that still doesn't seem right. Sounds fake. I'll believe it when I see it.

Oh, Mom! You can use Google Camera for this! You can choose "panorama photo" and it will—
Ah, whoops. Right. She's stuck 20 years in the past. Look at the lengths we had to go to before we had smartphones.

A ladder was set next to the left of the "fireplace" which led to the final visible area, the loft. It had brightly painted walls which most prominently featured a dark blue painted sign which read as follows:

[birdart's] Playhouse
[month & day of completion] 2005.

My mother was always fascinated with the idea of secret rooms and passages. I know this because of the McMansion floor plans I found in her room after she passed away, which she apparently drew for the fun of it. ...She also just brought up the idea pretty frequently in conversation, and, as a result, I sort of inherited that fascination from her. It would be fun to live in a house with secret rooms that only you know about, wouldn't it?

Scroll back up and look a little closer at the fireplace photo. Hey, isn't that carpet poking out the bottom?

The forth and final room—the "secret room" is only accessible through this small door, disguised as but an inconspicuous faux-fireplace.

Oh, right, there is a peephole in there! I forgot about that. Thanks for the reminder, Mom!

As far as I recall, there was nothing at all in the secret room except for a window, but it was still probably the room I spent the most time in. I enjoyed that it was secluded and private, and I would often go in there just to Vibe and Chill, etc. It was very small, and I remember having to duck to enter it, even as a toddler. I think Mom was able to crawl inside, but it didn't look too comfortable for her.

I didn't use the playhouse very often, a fault that ended up being one of my first existential life regrets. A very short number of years after construction finished, some stuff happened, life did its thing to us, and we had to move away from the birdhaus. I remember futilely asking my mother if we might be able to hoist the entire thing up onto an airplane or a truck using a crane of some kind, desperately wanting to somehow take it with us. Ms. Art then had to sit me down and explain to me the impracticality of the situation, and that the only part of the haus I'd be able to bring with me was a life lesson in impermanence. I was still deeply torn up at the idea of leaving, but these days I'm okay about it, so I guess I must have gotten over it at some point between then and now.

Sometimes, mom and I would drive by that old house to reminisce and see how far the tree we planted in the front yard had grown. You couldn't see the birdhaus from the street, however, so we never learned if it was still there; if the new owners got rid of it or not. I think I'd prefer to keep it that way.

Earlier today, I happened to be sifting through some old documents when I re-discovered a short write-up my mother wrote about the birdhaus to give to her university students. I say "re-discovered" because this isn't the first time I've seen it. I think about it all the time; it's just that I rarely can find a copy of it. We first found it in her dresser while we were cleaning out her room after she passed. My grandmother, who was helping search, couldn't stop scoffing with strict motherly concern as she read it. "Ms. Art! Augh!!" I remember her saying as she shook her head with a stern expression. "Ms. Art. Ms. Art." I was 17 and disassociating at the time, so I didn't really parse it, but whenever I read it nowadays, I have the same reaction.

...but by the end, all I can think about is how happy I am that I ended up with the same outlook on life that Ms. Art had.

Thanks, Mom. I'll try to take it from here.

I realize that this note sounds quite boomer (it was, in fact, written by one), but I often find myself trying to express the same sentiment. I've met a lot of people who have deluded themselves into believing they're incapable of achieving something or another, and it's hard to give them encouragement because they've already decided that they can't do it, and are thus immune to being told that they can.

Here's a little lesson in behaviorism: when someone decides something about their self-image, it stays that way, and any contrary evidence gets discarded. If I come to think of myself as someone who can't write, then I cannot the fxck write, and that's that. That time when my friends all complimented my writing must have been an outlier, and that other time a fluke, etc. We apes tend to choose having a stable and familiar self-image over an accurate or evidence-based one. I know this to be true, because I also do this. I'll think of myself with some negative trait, and then I'll get a complement or something about it and fully ignore it and decide it didn't happen.

Luckily, we're of the special type of ape species that can reflect on its own actions and identity.

To all those caught up in their own incompetence: I hope that you soon realize that you, too, are capable of learning.
Do you think Ms. Art was born knowing how to build a haus? The hxll she wasn't.

If there's something you've always wanted to try but thought yourself not good enough, then I implore you to go give it a shot. You don't have to tell anyone. Just do it for fun. Don't worry about if you're good or bad at it, that's stupid. That's the Devil talking. The correct response to "this doesn't make sense" is "so I'd better figure it out."

Just try doing your new thing every other day for as long as it brings you joy. The time will pass either way, so why not give it a shot? Go play in your birdhaus before you have to leave it behind. Don't be like me.