You wouldn't be lying...

...if you called my dad's house "spartan".


He may or may not still affiliate as a socialist in any official capacity, but as a left-leaning economist, a Jew, and a frugal man... the aesthetic stands. My dad is one of my absolute favorite people, and his home is one of the most pleasurable and relaxing places in the world for me.


If you were to enter his lair, you might assume he was a college student, and not a professor. Bookshelves made of cinder blocks, furniture found on the street. My dad has been known to find clothing at the park and bring it home to wear... making him the only guy I know who wears what the homeless leave behind.


Note the wood-stove he put in when he found out the house had no furnace. The roll-top desk HIS grandfather found in a parking lot in Scranton, PA decades ago, setting a family tradition of scavenging in stone. Note the light, the good cutting boards, both of them things my father takes seriously.


My father is always good at reminding me, without uttering a word, how much less we need... than we think we need. A cold dinner of cut vegetables, some bread, cheese, and conversation. The pleasure of a cold glass of water. The joy of falling asleep with a book. Abundance.


Also, if you've never lived in a rowhouse, you might be surprised by the window that looks onto a brick wall, a remnant of the days before AC, when windows were for light and air, and not always views...


This house reminds me of the house on TV Hill where my father lived in my growing up years. There's a sweet sweet grace to rowhouse living, to sharing a porch, a wall, a life with your neighbors so closely. In a rowhouse, you can hear when a man yells at his kids. You can pound on the wall. You can hear when a man laughs, laugh alongside...


Strange, the things one remembers... strange how lovely and safe and sad memory is... how it holds us accountable.


Like a rowhouse. Or a father.