On my last day of winter break, the house is empty for the entire afternoon — with my parents at work, my older siblings retreating to their respective apartments in Burlingame and Chicago, my grandmother lingering in the backyard.
The kitchen, without its usual bustle and the loud hum of the range hood, is now unnervingly still. Slice of sourdough in hand, I sit on our new gray leather couch — the replacement for the ratty old futon, its loud floral couch cover that my grandmother sewed herself. I see the white marble island, white cabinets that have displaced granite countertops, cherry wood. Large, framed photographs and paintings that meant nothing to my mother, the buyer, except bright distractions from the colorless walls. Our first gray leather couch, bought to fill space in the new living room. Archie, laying on the muted wood floor a few feet from the doormat, awaiting the brief minute of unadulterated attention he’ll get when someone comes home. Our family goldendoodle has never known the house before remodeling. He is one of the few warm-toned presences — besides the dining set we’ve kept — in the kitchen-dining-living room expanse.
I think of my newspaper editor when I was a sophomore, who first introduced me to Theseus’ Paradox. After half an hour of asking her about the editor experience over Sweetgreen, she walked me to the San Mateo Caltrain station, beginning the ship story. I still wore glasses then. She asked me how many replacements it would take before I’d consider my glasses wholly new. Did the parts themselves matter, or was it merely a question of cardinality? I answered that they would be new as soon as the frame was switched out.
Our house is now 500 square feet larger, painted Boston Cream, two pillars framing the royal blue door. Other houses in our San Jose neighborhood have followed suit in their renovations; drab beige becomes shining white, classic becomes modern, and I scoff as I walk past their pale imitation of ours.
Yet modernization is often inevitable. A 1963 home, three children, two parents and a grandmother all under one roof — I understand and appreciate the remodeling. And our house is undeniably gorgeous; I feel proud of all the effort my parents have put in to optimize design and space. Even so, our house has grown colder with its expansion — I have acquired four new blankets since — and I wonder if it deserves the designation of “new house,” despite being the address I have lived in since birth.
With old-school character traded in for efficiency, I’m still conflicted on where I stand. When I stay Friday nights at my sister’s Burlingame studio, untouched for at least half a century, I feel comforted, I miss the strong water pressure of our family home, I oscillate between finding the smaller space intimate and stifling.
It has, embarrassingly, taken me an afternoon alone in an empty house to realize my own home’s changes, but swapping out parts for each other is hardly new. Valley Fair displaced Vallco before I was born; the past four years attending school in San Mateo, I’ve watched a number of downtown businesses come and go. As homes continue to modernize and gathering places continue to replace each other, it raises the question of what needs to be preserved to maintain community identity. In San Jose, perhaps the proliferation of remodeled houses paints an even clearer picture of our neighborhood: the desire to make one’s mark that comes with new-tech ambition and money.
Emma Shen is a senior at Aragon High School in San Mateo. Student News appears in the weekend edition. You can email Student News at news@smdailyjournal.com.
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
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PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
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