essay

Equilibrium

When I set up housekeeping in the backwoods of Idaho, I adopted three simple rules: I don’t go under the house, I don’t run a chainsaw and I don’t go up on the roof. I believe in balance, and it seemed to me that cleaning up messes, paying bills, hauling trash and the myriad other unpopular jobs I handled offered reasonable counterweight in the division of labor between my husband and myself. In over a quarter-century I had never found occasion to modify my self-defined boundaries.

But now it’s fall and I stand outside on a rise above the house where I can see a metal stove pipe running up through the roof. On the east end, a rickety wooden ladder reaches just to the eaves. My husband is out of town and I haven’t braved a wood fire in two days. I’ve been running the propane furnace; I turn the thermostat to 70 and it’s so easy. Even so, I miss the focused heat of a good fire and squirm in miserly discomfort as I imagine the tank’s percentage gauge dropping while the furnace blasts warm air into my home.

I’ve considered asking for help. Sadly, none of my brothers live close by anymore; I could hit up my nephew or the neighbor man who pitches in with heavy work around the place. Or... I run through the list of possibilities—all men, since I’ve always believed it’s a man’s job to go up on the roof (and cut wood, and do whatever dark and dirty deeds must be accomplished under the house); yet I’m aware of a deep unwillingness to impose. Maybe I should ask my sister. She’s been single for years and done much of the manly work at her own home a half mile away. But if I would ask her, I might as well do it myself.

I think about it some more. The cap is probably plugged with creosote. I could pull it off, clean it, and run some chain down the pipe; I’ve seen it done and it can’t be difficult. Wandering around the yard casting furtive glances at my low, one-story roof, I wonder about feeling safe up there, a full 12 feet off the ground. I spend a few minutes piling slash from some recent thinning around our house. As I gather and toss spruce, fir and hemlock branches, I imagine myself on the roof, taking care of business without fuss or fear. The idea begins to grow on me and then, under a six-foot fir branch, I unearth a chain. It’s a logging chain bigger than I need for cleaning the pipe, but I take it as a sign.

“I’m going up,” I tell the dogs. My Jack Russell terriers suspend their investigations of varmint holes and potential marking spots to stare at me as I pick up the chain and drape it around my neck and over my shoulders. It weighs half a ton and hangs down to my knees. We tromp back to the house and I step inside, grab the cordless phone and dial my mother’s number.

“The stove pipe’s plugged and I’m going up on the roof,” I tell her. “I just wanted to let someone know in case anything happens. Which I’m sure it won’t.” “Oh, do you have to?”

“Well, Chris is gone, my pipe won’t draw and I haven’t had a fire in two days. I’ll call you in 20 minutes. If I don’t, better send somebody up here.” “Well, be careful. You’re smart to let someone know.”

Smart. And prepared: I rummage through my purse for my multi-tool and stuff it in my pocket before donning leather gloves. At the base of the ladder that doesn’t quite reach the roof I double the chain so it won’t clank around my thighs. The sun shines without warmth and a light, chilly breeze whips along the ridge.

I step onto the lowest rung and in seconds I’m up and over the edge, momentum carrying me a few feet across composition roofing on my hands and knees before I stop. The roof pitch is minuscule, the height is moderate and I’m amazed at how close I come to staying grounded. I rise, and for the first time in my life, I am standing on top of my own house.

The view takes my breath away. Below me our acreage spreads in waves of towering evergreens, their dark density studded with the glorious autumn treasure of golden tamarack, my favorite of all trees. The old cabin where I raised my children is partially visible and beyond it, the next southerly ridge swells and flows in another expanse of green and gold. A scattering of silver-barked birch decked in fluttery yellow leaves flank the perimeter of our clearing. I’m stunned by how different the view is only a few feet above the ground. I take it all in, breathing cold air and feeling taller and more competent than I ever remember.

Then I carry on, moving toward the pipe, thinking “bathroom under here, bedroom here, living room...”

And then I’m there, standing next to the pipe and a creosote-clogged cap. I try to pull it off but it doesn’t want to come loose. Next I attempt to screw it like a jar lid: no go. When I fist-slam it, creosote in the screening breaks loose and tinkles down through the pipe. I pull out my tool and extend an appendage, start poking it into the screen. More black stuff crumbles and falls. I bang on it a few times and apply more pokage, bagging the whole chain idea.

The dogs bark frantically below as I push through the last of the clogged holes. “I’m coming back now!” I yell, distracting them to one side of the house as I toss the chain onto the ground near the front door. I sprint (high in the air!) toward the exit end and without allowing myself to obsess over it first, I drop to the shingles and shimmy backwards, almost to the waist, before bending one leg down to feel for a ladder rung. Adjusting my position, I place a foot firmly on the third rung and in a flash I’m down, back on solid ground. Alive.

I notify Mom of my wholeness, lay a fire and torch it. Kindling crackles and air whooshes through the pipes. As the beefy stove metal heats up and begins to radiate into my home, I switch on the fan and pull up a chair. When I close my eyes I can still see the panorama of thick trees as they appeared from above, feel again the expansion of my being as I stretch into a space I never imagined I’d choose to go.

Since my foray to points above, I haven’t suffered compulsive urges to explore the crawlspace or fire up the chainsaw and bolster the woodpile. But I’ve toyed with the idea that I could do these things if I really, really wanted to. Or if I needed to. The idea of going under the house after being up top carries its own sense of balance in spite of the spider potential. But I won’t be disappointed if the only crawlspace expedition I ever embrace is in my imagination.

Ann Clizer lives in the backwoods of North Idaho at a floor-level elevation of 2,792 feet.

~Ann Clizer