The Terrible Weight of Lovely Things

By: Lizzie Joy (loveland) Nunemaker

I grew up in a lovely postbellum mansion in the South, which was once a series in a chain of houses for the Long Island  “East Egg” winter colonizers. Ours was first owned by Dr. Wright from New York and then I believe was rented by “the” Cabots of Boston for twelve winter seasons. Gatsby’s Tom Buchanan was based off of Tommy Hitchcock, whose woods I owe my childhood to. Originally, down the street from us was occupied by Ned and Evalyn McLean, heirs to the Washington Post and a gold mine, among other things. Her husband bought her the incomparable 45.2 carat  blue-violet Hope Diamond set in diamonds and platinum on a chain of large diamonds. She was one of those eccentric millionaires and used it to adorn ball gowns and swimsuits alike. She was even rumored to put the diamond on her Great Dane Mike’s collar, maybe it was getting too heavy for her own neck. 

She scoffed at the alleged “curse” she was quoted saying, “Unlucky things are lucky to me,” a sentiment that I with a Friday the thirteenth birthdate can relate too. 

But then two of her children died, she got a divorce, and her husband lost his mind.

Suddenly the diamond wasn’t so lovely, none of her kids wanted to keep it– so they sold it. That’s the thing about beauty, even as hardy as a diamond, it’s quite fragile. It can very much be dependent on the beholder. Or, lovely things are beholden to those that appraise their value.

I visited our old house, almost flinching from the childhood memory of walking up and immediately being tackled by our overly affectionate Newfoundland dog. The interior is what is most beautiful, with its ballrooms, banisters, and secret passageways hiding over a hundred years of secrets. But even from the grounds I look up and admire the detail. I think it’s why I love Victorian houses– the old but intricate designs on everything from baseboards to switch plates to the ornamentations on a chandelier. The houses back then were built to last; the former generations were not raised in a disposable culture like us. They were made with a dignity that wouldn’t very easily be sanded out of their woodwork by changing fads or exposure to the elements.

The home was a giant garden at one point, and by garden I mean flowering bushes and trees. We had a bush covered in fragrant wisteria vines and I swear I can still smell gardenias in my hand but mom swears we didn’t have any. We verifiably had camellias, azaleas, wisteria, the dogwoods, and our magnolias which would all be in bloom — pinks, whites, purples, reds. The new owner added a refreshing pool, which would’ve been wonderful back then, but the new owner also tore out a small dogwood and most, if not all of the camellia bushes from the front right corner, which I found sad.

I was so relieved to see that the magnolia in the back corner where it meets the brick wall. My friend and I would use a vertical standing brick, which, on tiptoe, we’d stretch to the lowest hanging branch which was still way above us, and like a gymnast I’d vault my legs up till they wrapped around it and was up. We pretended it was a castle and we were the princesses. We’d always wipe the rust colored magnolia dust on our plaid jumpers or skorts, our hands, coming into the house still smelling like that magnolia musk.

I sat and did still life sketches from the steps outside the sun room/music room, I was always an artist. And one time I tried to lure squirrels into a squirrel catching device using the rubbery orange acorn meat that I had cracked open, cleaned, and put on a plate. I waited a substantial amount of time holding the end of a string.

In the springtime I’d sometimes pick flowers for my teachers, but always wary of the camellia bushes— some of them looked intact but when you went or pick them, they fell apart in your hands, perfect petals collapsing around a mushy core. The thing is, as lovely and intact as they could appear, the center could not hold, the  flower was dying from the inside, even if you couldn’t see the damage.

It’s funny, the terrible weight of lovely things.

Like the camellia, projecting health even while dying. How if we clench our fists around the Hope Diamonds in our lives comes with such a curse– the curse of protecting and maintaining above all else. Perhaps people are comforted by the assumption that lovely things, by nature we assume, are not sick. Lovely things are always exactly what they appear. 

That house I grew up in was so lovely. 

It’s been probably fourteen or more years since I’ve walked these grounds. It was so amazing to see again, and I remember longing for a day like this, seventy degrees, sunny, and being able to get in my car and drive myself out of the iron gate. Actually, the iron back gate was installed after I left, but as a child it might as well have been welded shut. Sometimes I’d sit on the brick wall, adjacent to and shielded by my magnolia tree, and I’d just stare down at the pavement on the other side. I’d watch the cars in their movement, while I stayed there in my stillness.

Now I am old enough, and tall enough to climb the tree without the need of a brick. And I am in the business of listening to people’s secrets, and I am in the business of telling my own. And even while I still sometimes feel like I’m waiting for the gate to open, to open my mouth, to publish my memoir– I am glad that I am mostly free to no longer have to maintain an appearance. Because the beauty that I have acquired is too deep to be sanded away by rejection or loss.

The thing is, outward beauty stays for a while, like a Carolina wren that flies home to roost. Every spring that is, she comes and trills among the magnolias. And then one day she never returns.

But the song never leaves you.

I can still hear her in my head.