In Progress

morning reflections

Well, work is getting done!  The downstairs is a mess of old wood exposed, new wood hammered, ceiling scrapes, dangling and redirected electrical wires, furniture piled on porch and under wraps, kitchen things and books tucked into closets.

new furniture for the porch

kitchen opened up

Here is my dining table for the duration:

All the workers I contacted months ago are showing up and doing good, sometimes brilliant, work, ie., the master carpenter and his master electrician friend, who both think in whole-picture perspectives, and the painter who actually knows how paint is made, changes over time, and shows on different planes. 

Keith explaining the science of paint

Painting will begin in the living room with my firm and firmly final decision, Benjamin Moore's "Persimmon".  I'd tried the Sherwin Williams variety of that color first, but it reminded me of the salmon loaf they served me two hours after Joseph's birth (what is it about the choices hospital dieticians make?). I found the bedrooms-baths color, too, "White Rain", a gentle hint of blue-gray.  For months, I had hemmed and hawed over whether they would match each other, until the other day, making up the bed with the new coverlet I had sewn back on stay-in winter nights, I looked down and saw them happily coexisting in the fabric. Ah.

Since my last renovation seven years ago (I call it Part I of III), when my brother and nephew did most of the redoing, I hadn't collected the necessary roster of experts, and all my relatives who can do such things are now busy redoing their own places.

But a friend recommended the carpenter,  Chuck, who had done a superb job on his bookcases and cabinets, as I saw for myself.  When Chuck came to look over what needed to be done, he nodded sagely at my long list and said he could do most of that. That was over a month ago, before I could move back in, but he put me on his schedule and showed up the first day as I was unloading boxes and bags from my car.

Since then, he's been keeping me apprised of every turn and change, to which I inevitably reply,  Go to it. He brought in his painter, Keith, a friend of his from childhood, who reminisced with him about skateboarding down our hill.  Though Keith groaned at the idea, he  scraped all my ceilings, agreeing they needed it.  Just expect surprises, Keith counseled (sure enough, he was right...as I write, I can hear him struggling with one).  Chuck also called in another friend, electrician Joe, who cut a swath from his overloaded schedule so that the work on the pocket door to the bathroom wouldn't be held up.  (Certain people get priority, he nodded to me; I was glad to be, at least indirectly, on the receiving end of that association). 

Missing my brother Charles, I had searched online for a tile installer and found one whose written reviews included two people I knew.  Ben turned out to be a young fellow with a new baby who, for safety, asked that the house be clean and clear before he came to measure and advise, and who in turn recommended his friend, five-star stone-installer, Josh, who guided me through a bewildering collection of options for countertops.  Josh then sent his plumber, Mr. Ivy, who came when called and now I don't have to brush my teeth in the shower anymore.  Professional nepotism?  Maybe, but it works for me.

The best part is watching and listening as I traverse ever-changing paths through the rooms; they labor and talk and sing comfortably around each other...I find it a cheerful and cheering scene, knowing that, like art, all the mess is creating a new life for the house.

Yesterday so many people showed up...carpenter, painter, plumber, dishwasher deliverer, and electrician...that I decided to get out of their way and continue work on a new gravel-flagstone path in among the ivy tangles behind the house. 

Later this week, two helpers will show up to plant a few new trees in the back yard.  The ground is too contemptuous for me to dig, composed entirely of clay entwined with large tree roots and embedded in rocks the size of stairsteps...in fact, that's what Joseph dug up in the front yard to build two sets of stairs on the slope.

stepping stones, or what I'm grounded on

And speaking of the front slope, I'd best get out there and water the garden.  We have had much rain in recent weeks, but suddenly this week everything is bone dry.  So I am off to the garden center to pick up extra hose and attachments.

That's what we have been up to here...how about you?

 

 

Mulch

 

What have I been doing all this time?  You may wonder...and so may I.  Packing to move?  Not yet.  Fixing up the house to get back into?  Not yet.  Joseph has been working hard at his end of the move, so, while the engine of my anticipation is racing, I am exercising it outdoors.  Besides taking great pleasure in this season's gorgeous crop of daffodils, I'm planning new gardens, cleaning up the yard (Alexander and Louis' battalion having been deployed to the camp next door), ordering plants for a back border, and mulching. 

invading fort...

...newly deployed

Last summer and fall, Joseph spent months turning my problematic slope into a beautifully designed rock garden.  He and Alexander dug up the rocks themselves (I probably told you about it then) and Joseph placed them and planted around them parcel by parcel. 

Joseph's rock garden last fall

But the last two months' rains have washed our native orange clay to the surface, making for slippery, uneven slopes here and there.  Perfect for building army forts, and camouflaging against the enemy, but not much for growing.  So, once I had a clear field, it was time to replenish, lay down nourishment and comfort, and hold down my ground.

Meanwhile, I hadn't noticed how the pandemic enclosures this last year had rendered me so inactive, physically.  I walk outdoors almost every day, of course, 40 minutes at least, often an hour, but being in a small apartment and leaving the gardening at the house to (the more talented, frankly) Joseph, I wondered whether my body would be up to the task of hauling and digging and spreading mulch as I had done in years past.  Creaks and groans in knees, a disfigured hand...what did that say about a change of life force...was it time to let someone else do it?

What erased that question was the estimate I received from a well-recommended garden helper.  I won't shock you with the exact figure, but I figured that doing it myself would save enough for three new kitchen appliances...and not small ones, either.  So I got on the phone to Brockwell's and ordered a truckload to be delivered.  There was no longer any question whether I'd once more pick up shovel and rake and get to work myself.  

The nice office manager at Brockwell's made sure I was buying enough to justify the delivery charge (a drop in the bucket), but delivery was better than borrowing someone's pickup and going back twice for more.  To avoid delays, she advised me to get on their waitlist. "That way the driver can just call you when he finds extra time between deliveries, and even if you are not home, you can put a bucket to mark where you want it dumped and leave a check under the mat."

To my amazement, the load showed up the same afternoon.  A generous three yards of double shredded hardwood piled nearly as high as the window sills was mine to work with.  And work I did.  Over three days, at 2-3 hours at a time, I stuck pitchfork after pitchfork into the steaming hulk, loaded wheelbarrowfuls to truck to the far and near corners of the front yard, first raking mounds of leaves out of their nests in shrubbery and rock borders.

Frankly, the effort...my effort...amazed me. Initially, I reckoned that I'd be able to work an hour or so til my heretofore crumbling body complained, but miraculously it had sprung into Spring mode...it didn't make a peep. 

 In a few hours the whole lower slope was finished.  From the first dig into that pile, I recognized the familiar strength real physical work draws out.  When later I returned to the apartment I was sure I'd need a good dose of ibuprophen, or something stronger, before bedtime, but all I really felt was exhilaration.  I was tired, but in the way one feels after a bracing game or run (don't be fooled:  I haven't run in at least four decades, but you understand the analogy, I'm sure).  I couldn't wait for the next day to begin again.

center front, spring, mulched

Though day one had been a balmy 70 degrees F, day two was cloudy, considerably cooler and dampening with the mist of a small rain.  No problem for me:  over a few hours the mulch pile diminished even further.

lesser celandine

My prolific gardening neighbor Laurie Thorp had dug me up some of her lesser celandine, which, though invasive enough to cover a whole yard in no time, would at least anchor the steepest, most resistent part of the slope.  I planted those right away while the air was wet.  Neighbor after neighbor stopped by to cheer me on (a few wondered where the soldiers had gone).  Yesterday morning, day three, colder still and bracing, I headed back to do what was left.  After the day's dig and spread, I walked around that slope, picking up last leaves, raking here and there, happy (as I hope the garden will be) not only at the way it looked, but at the way I felt...lifted and cleansed of old infirmities.

back mess of ivy

Now it's time to get to the back yard, where acres of ivy complicate everything.  On Monday, one of the university boys will come to help me tackle the mess and ready the ground for the new trees that arrive on Tuesday; my hands, while they can lift, haul, carry, rake and plant, can't dig large wells well. On Wednesday, plant; on Thursday, who knows what I will turn to?  Oh, right...bluestone pebbles down for a path to a small flagstone patio (I'd better get an order in for those).  

I'm up for anything these days, thanks in no small part to the effort called forth by Spring.

Here, though, is the highlight of our move so far:  last night, on the other side of the driveway, we celebrated Joseph, born into daffodil season all those years ago, just before the first day of Spring, with a birthday dinner in his new kitchen.  Though he's not moved in yet, we sat enjoying the space and admiring the view out the windows, blessing candles, bread, and being together.  

Spring has always been for me a resurgence of body and spirit...and new life.  

This year it radiates inside and out.

How I love a project!

This morning I went to Lowe's, a first venture since last March into a store with a parking lot more than 10 cars occupied.  What possessed me?  Well, I've had my two vaccine shots, for one thing; I, as usual, armored myself in mask and gloves, for another; and for a third...the most exciting...I have a Project!  

the horror

My husband, poor thing, used to cringe when he sensed that air of redoing descend on me.  "You always need a project," he would moan, knowing that the next months (or even the next trip to Oden's Country Store) would bring dreaded change underfoot.  It's a good thing he can't see the upheaval planned for this spring...probably dragged into part of the summer, as things go.   

he's moved on

My house, inhabited for the last two years by my two best men, their two cats, a sometime lizard and its accompanying crickets, and before them by my dear, well-aged aunt and uncle, needs some renovation before I can make it mine again.  Seven years ago, when I bought it, I'd had to have a go it, as its 27-year history was a rental to students, mostly.  Fortunately I had my talented and inventive brother Charles and nephew Joe to work on a lot of it, building cabinets, putting in a new shower, tiling, painting, helping with appliances, etc.  Along the way, I had the porch added and fixed this and that as needed.

the porch that changed everything

This time, however, aside from the normal seven-year itch to repaint and repair, this remodel looks toward the future.  Enough people have passed through as guests and co-residents in those years to show me what a functional (and appealing) space I have to work toward, so that for the next decades, if necessary, it will serve what I am and what I am to become. 

Botticelli Red

Rain

As I go through each room, in mind or in actuality, I first appraise it for use and then for comfort...which includes ease of mind and eye.  I am one for whom the space she inhabits is as much as possible an extension of the psyche, though truthfully I am pretty capable of making a space do.  I'm not one for glamour, particularly, nor for the vast square footage popular in bedrooms, kitchens and (I have never figured out why) laundry rooms.  What I need is enough room for me and for whoever chooses to drop in and live for a while. (For instance, this time my upstairs, though formerly my lair, will now become what my sisters call their "snow bird apartment".  My studio, downstairs now, will be big enough for a wide open work table in the middle.  And the doorway between the bathroom and bedroom will be wide enough for a wheelchair, if it comes to that.)  

windows that don't leak

storm door that actually keeps out the storm

Although work won't begin until April, the past weeks have found me almost deliriously busy collecting workpeople and materials, choosing paint and countertops and sinks and windows.  (Today, at Lowe's, it was a quick pickup of faucets.)  Stone and tile installers, plumbers and electricians, painters and carpenters...my address book is filling with their phone numbers, and my hopes riding along with them.

a pantry I can see things in

shelves I can reach

    

And that's only for inside the house.  I've also been collecting visions of landscapes to try later on, especially in the back yard. Over the year, Joseph has worked miracles of hard labor to transform the front slope, with help from Alexander to dig up all those rocks, and they have given me a wonderful topography to work with.  

Joseph's front slope

Of course, Alexander and his friend Louie need to be convinced that, as they move next door, they will have to take with them their complex system of brick, stone and wood forts, built over months for hours at a time each and now ranged over half the top of the front yard.  On the afternoons I sit at the house, listening and watching their project, I can only admire the industry and creativity they display.  Their ingenuity, invention, narrative and cinematic geniuses have brought all they have to bear on it (and also on most of my daffodils).  So moving the fort to a new location, even only fifty or so linear yards away, is not, I will tell you, a happy prospect for them.  They are, in fact, preparing for war...against me and my gardening plans.

But gardens I will have, for whenever my energies turn to the outdoors.  

not a fountain but a dream of one

  

garden path instead of ivy tangle

For right now, I am gratefully pulled out of the pandemic and its quieter demeanor, as well as its endlessly altering landscape, by planning for what's to come.  My blood is racing, my head sparking with ideas and practicalities, estimates, budgets and timelines.  I carry around a ruler and a fattening notebook of possibilities.

Not that I am expecting the impossible...renovation, whether physical or spiritual, is never trouble-free. And you know the old, tried-and-true saying about plans... our old 1890 house Down East was enough proof that opening up a wall, or even a light switch plate, was opening Pandora's box.

Still, you remember what was left in that box once that unfortunate girl finally got it shut...Hope.  It is nice to have a project again, to begin with ideals, at least some of which are bound to come true.

February: whether weather

 It's one of those odd, in-between days when the morning begins at a decent warmth and then slides down from there.  Hours after dawn, still it's dark, too dark for a morning coming after a day of  impressive, spring-like sun.

That's what weather is like...changing at the whim of unseen forces and bringing change to us, too, in sometimes small, sometimes huge ways. Taking the temperature of today means I look out among the winter trees, hoping to see another clump of freshly bloomed daffodils brave among the dried leavings...but knowing that we might just as well take what comes into stride.

My cousin Barbara, talking about the house at the shore yesterday, reported that there had been a severe Nor'wester which wiped out a whole beach a few towns down from ours.  People talk about replenishing sand, she said, but why?  Nature is going to do what it wants.  It always has.  

shore news photo

That got us to thinking back over our childhoods, remembering each first visit to the shore in early spring, running out from the car to see how far or near the ocean had decided we could be from our bulkhead.  It was always different, and we took what we got, happy just to be where we were, whether we could jump way down off a high boardwalk, play scrunched under it, or simply step an inch or two off into the sand.

At whatever age, we are always reminded by such weather that the universe is a whole lot bigger than we are.  The illusion of control that fills some perspectives among us is an unfortunate pitfall of a limited imagination.  You know, Barbara said, in a way it's kind of comfortable knowing how small we are in the scheme of life...I like knowing that here I am in my own little world, watching the birds at the kitchen window, going about my life wherever it takes me.  Living comfortably with whether can be a virtue.  It's certainly what the birds do.

Bluebirds at feeder in snow, photograph by Barbara Jaeger

It's a good way to think about today, wondering whether the dark will lighten, wondering whether a sweater or a coat will suffice for a walk...and will it be a raincoat, after all?  Boots?  Rain isn't predicted until tomorrow, but the sky seems to be taking on a maudlin tone, and the wind's up.

Whatever, we just adjust to it...or, rather, whether, like so many universal forces, adjusts us to suit its tenor.  

January

 I'm really meant to be registering for a new health plan online information presentation (what a mouthful) right now, but as I sat down to get to it, some books on my worktable fell over.  I looked around and found this little iron owl to put in place.  Better.

It's a simple fix, I know, but it signifies what January has always been for me.  Putting things in place, collating, weeding out unnecessaries, shapeshifting my environment.   Sometimes I re-place things, then re-place them back to their original spot, as if the movement were a kind of verification.  Sometimes, like yesterday's sudden impulse to rearrange the handmade, disaster strikes...a ceramic angel, the gift of a friend, dislodges, falls, and is decapitated.  But mostly these efforts make some peace with my way of living.

Since it's my birth month, executive orders are supposedly the order I live by, but I find that the rest of the year (with the exception of maybe September, that old beginning-school-year thing) my talents for executing aren't so much in evidence.  That's okay.  Pushing things around doesn't have to be a year-round sport.

Plus, it seems that I will be moving myself in a few months...back to my own house, as Joseph and Alexander have found one nearby...right next door, in fact.  So this month's mindset has been useful in pre-organizing Things That Have To Be Done.  There's quite a lot, in fact...some kitchen and bath renovation, new windows, the back yard to make into something besides a sea of ivy and spindly trees.  But plans take shape, and it's actually exciting to make lists of the ideas and materials to make them happen, and to search among the available experts to effect them.  I'm in the mood for change.

There is, of course, the dust of debris to look forward to...from change itself, from expunging, from rebuilding.  It isn't pleasant when you are in the middle of it, but it's a pathway and I, at least in these ways, find it a challenge I look forward to.  Even the inevitable surprises and adjustments (and re-adjustments) that come with the territory of changing anything.  It turns out to be my forte any month of the year.

I'll keep you posted as things shape up.  I'm accepting all manner of renovation advice, if you care to contribute.

Be well, all.  Take care. Now on to that health thing...

Winter

  

Walking out today, it feels like spring...freshly opened air, clear vision.

But it's winter, even on such a day that feels like a reprieve, a gift we can enjoy while we can.  We think of spring as hope...new growth, returning warmth, the freedom of the burgeoning outdoors after the huddle of icy months.  No wonder I am more buoyant.

Seasons have each their own personalities, though once in a while they indulge in a little alter-ego play.

Summer, those few months that used to mean children unfettered by time and school, is followed by Fall, the break from the oppressive heat, pretty colors against a deepening landscape, the breeze still light, still welcome.  We dress in sweaters and wrap ourselves in pumpkin festivals.

Illusions, all.

It's winter that holds the truth...trees bared of their fluttering decor, bone-chilling mornings, darkness that descends before our days are done.

Winter is the season of reality.  Nothing hidden except the roots of things to come.  We see ourselves as we are, unadorned, undistracted by dalliances, delusions.  We hunt, as does all of nature, for sustenance.

Around us, the foundation and structures that hold us in place become clear...the iced immobility of ground, the many-fingered limbs stark against impenetrable sky, abandoned nests (no longer safe from preying eyes) tangled in them, the outlines of crevices, once softened by glare, now sharpened by shadow.  Sunlight, slanted, stays long enough to give us new perspectives.

We may be lucky enough to hide from the cold, but not from ourselves.  Plainness is the virtue to hold to.  We face what we need to learn and to know.  To think about what is worth keeping, and what must pass on, or go.

Lying fallow, we do what we can to repair the damages of delusion and over-bearance.  We prepare to grow.

Who we are

 

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