Raw Land

My friend and I watched her house burn. It was an old home and it was going quickly, and yet so slowly the loss spread. Firefighters worked to control it, to contain it. Some of her valuables could be saved, but her cats had already perished.

We sat there silently; every now and then, my friend uttered, gently, “Oh, oh, oh.” To which I answered, “I know, I know.”

It was a small but grand home. Grand from my perspective, because it wasn’t a farmhouse, it was a “cottage.” In the language of the nascent luxury real estate economy, “cottage” was an intentional understatement and maybe even a stab at modesty. This was a home built for pleasure, not Protestant practicality.

It sat on the highest point of the gently rising plot. A wide porch, an almost always open Dutch door. The place my friend came to own was not manicured, because it was old enough just to be itself — a rareness now in the land of teardowns, it looked natural, cozy, welcoming.

Last week, I remembered that fire. In fact, I cannot pass the vacant, overgrown lot without having some memory or another stirred. My friend moved away, but, before her, so had other families, come and gone. It was just that when my friend left, the house was gone and the plot of land went back to something they call “raw land,” as if you can cook it. Which, I guess, you can.

Why do we cook things? Sometimes it is to kill the dangerous things within. Sometimes it makes the food taste better, and sometimes it is just that cooking it makes it possible for us to chew the food.

Last week, I sat through a presentation, because, after many years, a new owner has finally come. They want to eradicate the plot’s glacier-given topography — they want to go deep and wide.

Engineers and consultants discussed the design and impact of the planned “compound.” Note the change in language. How do you go from a cottage to a compound? By cooking it.