I live and dwell 1 in an old house, its 2 not a particularly large or showy or expensive house. It needs paint, I like the color red, 3 a new roof, and a more efficient furnace. But it has one outstanding feature: beautiful old oak floors. Human ingenuity has contrived many coverings for floors, from linoleum to carpeting to tiles made from space-age plastics. To me, though, nothing is as satisfying as 4 the color and texture of real wood.
When I moved to this house, the wood was covered with carpet because over the years they had become 5 stained, worn, and marred. Now, however, 6 I've had the floors restored to their original condition. They shine with such richness and brilliance that you'd never know they'd been so near ruin. It's as though they've been granted a second life.
Of course, these old oak floors don't present a uniform, as it were, 7 appearance. The planks differ slightly in color from 8 one another. The grain of the wood changes from board to board. Knots and other such imperfections should have been 9 easily found. Yet these minor variations, typical of natural materials, are pleasing in their overall effect; they reflect the unity within variety which characterizes all of the natural world, which is not made by humans. 10
I often wonder what these old floors have lived through. I imagine that the inhabitants of this house have displayed imperfections just like the wood over the years 11 upon which they daily walked. Doubtless these floors have been the scene of childhood tantrums, adolescent pouts, and frustrated and afraid adults. 12 But doubtless they've also been the scene of many joyful moments—moments of kidness, hospitality, and love. The restoration of these oak and wood 13 planks to their original beauty gives me hope for the future. I take them as an emblem of reclamation, proof that all natural things can preserve a richness of spirit beneath temporary grief and pain. I hope my family and I will do the same.