Here There be Ghosts

There are, of course, ghosts in this house.  I know this is so, as it is the only possible explanation for the recent shenanigans with my glasses that occurred as I prepared to write this post.  Said glasses remained nowhere to be found, despite a stern, lights-on, room-by-room and surface-by-surface search.  I even put on clothing, so as to promote deliberateness and thoroughness (by virtue of not having to hasten around as-yet un-curtained windows, although truthfully, almost none remain).

It was only upon a stern rebuke to the Muse - a single, vocalized warning in the empty stillness, the crack of spring ice, that my eye at last lit upon the spectacles: right before my very eyes, on top of the books on the shelf above the stereo, wherein I had loaded several Supertramp cd's as background music for the writing of the post.

I had earlier been seated on the dining table, swinging my feet, the house dark save for the glow of candles, soaking in the tranquil silence of this stately home.  Upon my head sat (and sits still) my old traveling hat; made of coarse brown leather, it's crossed the country and the pacific with me more than a few times.

I had earlier given some boastful, self-congratulatory thought to myself for the quality of my weariness and the honesty of it's acquisition.  I rather fancied myself hard working.  I could cite tasks accomplished by hour, by day, by week - they are indeed manifold.  I am labor; hear me roar.

I think that it was this arrogance that caused the ghosts to strike.

Now, here an aside: of all the supernatural forces in the world of which I have ever been apprised, I am certain as to the status of all but two.  Which is to say, none exist, save, perhaps, ghosts and my Muse.

And I am aware, thank you, that the Muse is a construct of my own mind, an imagined personification with whom I indulge in debate and conversation.  My imaginary friend, there always, and at most points in my life, my sole friend.  Forever eloquent, and when I am searching for a word, she dissolves into a cloud of butterflies that become words, fluttering my face in offering until the perfect expression of my thought alights upon the end of my pen and is thereby absorbed into the page.

As to ghosts, there are some intriguing possibilities for coherent explanations to the phenomena our limited human minds perceive as ghosts.  So the jury's out there.  Or was, until this event with my writing glasses this evening.

I am dead certain my darling Muse would not be so unkind as to force me through the adventure of searching the home three times over for my glasses; finally determining to fetch my old pair of writing glasses  - to include having gone so far as to make an actual attempt to write with them; and subsequently giving up in despair as the words age quickly and must be captured while fresh.  I cannot believe she would do this, simply to teach me me that while I might think I am doing much with little, others have done much more with much less, to include several others who have lived here previous to me - all nine generations of them.

Somewhere in the basement lies a stone that was placed there by a man over a hundred years dead, and I rest my bones in the home that he built atop that stone.  He built so well that it shelters me still, and, moreso even than that, delights me in contemplation of it's craftsmanship and maintenance.

It is my grim determination to honor that man, who quarried or arranged to have quarried and transported tremendous blocks of limestone, an easy 10 cubic feet at a whack.  You'd need a bomb to dislodge this foundation, and that might not even do it - regardless of the fate of the house, the basement would likely survive.

But I digress.  Regardless of my certainty of her lack of involvement, I openly rebuked the Muse and suddenly there they lay - my glasses.

Yet somewhere in that process of searching for my stolen glasses, it occurred to me that perhaps the former occupant of this erstwhile abode may have him or herself wished to undertake a written recording of some type, or perhaps a work of fiction: they may, by chance, have desired to write, much as I do, and undertaken it themselves as well.

Of course, these people, should they have chosen to follow a desire write, would of necessity faced a much more arduous task than I today face.  I have a computer; the original inhabitants of this house had at best pencil and paper with which to work.  I have spell check!

Perhaps more to the point, in much likelihood, adequate glasses to compensate for failing sight would likely of been precious commodities.  And so I was in turn rebuked, that I had pouted over having been forced to contemplate the use of a less-preferred pair of glasses in the face of my inability to locate my preferred glasses.  I mean I have two pair, close to hand.  Wealth, by some culture's standards.

I also have the choice of electric lights or oil lamps and candles; the original inhabitants of this home had no such choice.  Nor did they have running water, paved streets, automobiles, or any of hundred things that we each take, each day, as commonplace.


So it occurred to me that I was being handed a lesson: don't think too highly of yourself there, sport; you who toy at labor when those who have gone before you approached it not as a chosen vocation, but as the price of life.  And approached the task with that solemn knowledge foremost in mind.

I am certain my sloe-eyed Muse would ne'er be so unkind as to teach me such a lesson in such a haphazard fashion, and in so doing threaten the loss of the very words she has given me, and so I conclude the house must be haunted; it must be ghosts taunting the Muse, setting her up, as it were.

So here there be ghosts.

I have been here, by my reckoning, about eighteen days.  I departed Columbus, fully loaded (the truck, not me, heh-heh, but I did treat myself to a bottle of Laphroaig upon arrival), on the 12th of July.  I arrived mid-day on the 13th, a Wednesday, and unloaded the truck completely before knocking off.  On that evening, having traversed no fewer than 1200 miles in two days, I had my new neighbors over for a fireside chat.

Since then I have steadily worked 10 to 14 hour days, with my 'easy' days now being the three days I spend working for Bill Kirk.  While working for him, I have help, expensive power tools, and intermittent down time.  Easy days, compared to what I put myself through.

There is no end to the work that is necessary: the real number one job on the schedule is to gut and remodel the main floor bathroom.  I won't go into detail but suffice to say, we will shortly be back to wall studs and copper tubing in there.  But in order to do something fairly significant like remodeling a bathroom, it helps to not be working out of a bag.


So I do understand that this grand undertaking, this Jupiter Project, is not a weeks or months or possibly even years-long process.  My unscientific (but generally fairly accurate) estimation of the time needed to take the Project to what I would consider 90% complete is about ten years, give or take two years either way under expected conditions.

Given good luck, favorable weather, and some modest economic success with Against the Grain, we may be able to whittle the establishment phase of the entire project down to five years, but even that is quite a stretch ( and that's assuming access to fuel and heavy machinery).

I am well ahead of schedule with the shop - it's very nearly complete.  I must still sort and organize a great many of the smaller tools and expendables, and I must still wire it, but those will be done in short order.  The heavy work is done - the new floor, the workbenches.

The inside of the house - the parts I frequent, anyway comprise one of the most beautiful homes in which I have ever been privileged to live; and I've done little but install new shades, clean, arrange furniture, hang pictures and decorate.

Still to do is a complete remodel of the interior.

I've begun the landscaping.  Nina has begun mapping flower locations in beds (she maps each flower's placement down to the inch), and along with the debris from the destruction of the garage floor I've brought in two loads of creek stone from Creek Road and some of the timbers left from bridge construction.  Also, a dozed bags of crushed gravel for base for the stone wall.  The lot of which will soon form a backdrop to phase one of landscaping the back hill.

I've already cleared the hill and established the baseline contour of the wall using concrete rubble, which has saved ma lot of work: the width of a dry stone wall at the base must be twice the final height; I have been spared a great deal of hauling of stone from Creek Road by having the garage floor to hand.

The timbers must be cleaned, stripped of bark, and stained, to lengthen their lifespan.  No doubt, however, I shall be revisiting this task in about ten years.  That's okay.  Next time, we'll work only with stone, and plan for centuries.

So  feel I have accomplished an fair amount in a short time - and, still, I feel as though I am a man who has determined to move a mountain, and having taken the first shovel-full, looks about himself contentedly, basking in his accomplishment, only barely beginning to grasp the enormity of the task which he has undertaken. He rather is pleased that he has undertaken a beginning, and content to call it a day at that.

But calling it a day at one shovelful and a warm glow will not suffice; actual work must be done.


And so I dig in, with my hands and my sweat, and I end each day gritty and exhausted, some days hobbled a bit if I have been carrying great weights.  And I have not stopped for a day yet, and won't until the 16th when I am inbound to sit a spell with my bride and my children. 

By then, the shop will be completely finished, the landscaping will be well upon it's way to being done, and the basement will have been once again reorganized after having been somewhat bestirred during the process of building and outfitting the shop.

Then, the ghosts shall have to do without me for a few days, and remain instead content with my new kitten, who arrived in a stranger's arms today, a seeker after the cat's master, and to that point luckless.  But now the cat has a master, and I have a cat, and my erstwhile village mate (whom I shall now forever consider her named as She Who Brings Cats) - whose name I do not know - is relieved of her burden, and returned to her own three cats.

And I am content.  In fact, I am no on record as affirming that my life is at present almost perfect, the sole flaw being the absence of my wife from my side.  I miss my children also, but that sting will be there whenever one doesn't see them daily, as one recalls parenting, and so I do not count that suffering as resolvable.

I am beyond content.  I am at peace.

17 Park Street Progress

So as you can see from the slideshow titled '17 Park Street Progress', I have been fairly busy lately.  I got into town on the 13th, unpacked immediate needs, organized the place somewhat (at least, the spaces I am currently using are organized.  Much remains to be unpacked.)

The general plan was to arrive, conduct minimal unpacking and settling in, and commence the major projects.  Because most of the major projects will require a full suite of carpentry, masonry, electrical and plumbing tools, as well as space in which to work, Nina and I determined that construction of the shop would be job one.  I am decisively engaged in this now.

I have until the end of August to complete the shop.  This involves:

• replacing the floor with fresh, polished concrete
• removing the non-functional post-and-wire electrical service and re-wiring the shop for both 110 and 220
• installing lights
• removing the windows, repairing the frames, re-glazing the windows, and reinstalling the windows so that they open and close
• established fixed locations for certain large tools (drill press, band saw, two lathes, etc)
• establishing a fixed, external and sheltered location for the 80-gallon compressor (it's very loud)
• designing and installing lumber racks, racks for seasoning turning wood and for work-in progress, and shelving and other storage as needed
• designing and installing tool and expendables storage
• insulating the interior (maybe)
• installing a wood stove

Once this is done, I can move on to the other major projects (in no particular order):

• landscaping
• remodel the downstairs bathroom
• remodel the upstairs bathroom
• remodel the downstairs kitchen
• remodel the upstairs kitchen and Nina's 3-room office suite, of which the kitchen is a part.  The upstairs kitchen will have it's internal 'kitchen' footprint reduced; the remaining space will be given over to a bistro-type seating area, and an indoor gardening and herbalists workspace
• concerting the living room into a study, which will involve installing French doors - one of the few items I intend to pay to have done
• removing old, non-functional wiring left in place when the house was re-wired some years ago, and re-wiring the house as necessary
• renovating each room in the house, one at a time, to include removing, refurbishing, stripping, re-painting and re-glazing  all windows and installing exterior storms

We're allowing a year and half for this phase.  Concurrently, on an as-able basis, we will make improvements to the Project - I have already coordinated for the mowing of the home site and the pasture, and for roughing in the remaining section of road enabling me to drive to the Abode.

For the last two days, I have been tearing the floor from the shop.   This activity coincided with a record-breaking heat wave - it was 105 degrees here today. Unbelievable.  Even without the heat, 12 solid hours of breaking concrete into manageable chunks using nothing but a sledge hammer, and engineer's hammer (basically a four-pound hand-held sledge with an extended handle) and a pick is arguably the most brutal task I have ever undertaken.

By the way, for those reading this - feel free to post comments or ask questions following each blog post, as opposed to e-mailing me directly.  That way, other readers can share the comments and questions and answers.

Mailbox will be in tomorrow, and most of the new blinds for the house arrived today.  Since I won't be able to work in the shop until Saturday, and Mom is arriving Saturday, I won't actually begin work on the shop until Monday, perhaps later, as I've agreed to work two days a week for Dave E - the second job offer I've had since arriving.  Work will be general demolition prior to masonry work.  I don't know what two days I will be needed next week.

I'll write a progress post late next week.

Keep in touch, and learn to drink tea,

jeffrey

jeffrey

Notes from a Small Town in July

So tonight I am listening to music drift across the valley - it is the last night of the Fireman's Fair, the primary fundraising event for the fire and emergency services here in Moravia.

Today there was a parade through town - pretty good turn out, and all of the various fire departments from across the region sent vehicles to represent.

I walked to the parade with my northern neighbors (I think I got the compass wrong in my previous post - if that information differs from this, then go with this) Susan and Carolynn, two quite delightful artists - truly, artists, having made their living at it the whole of their lives, in one manner or another.  Phenomenally intelligent people up here.

A completely wonderful pair of individuals, vibrant and alive, endlessly energetic and optimistic, growing things to eat in odd places, all over the yard, and oh so crushingly intelligent.  I must keep my mouth shut in this town for risk of running afoul of Twain's warning.

(And my how the music sings now - a soulful dirge creeping across the valley, echoes in the night air reflecting festivals ancient and modern)

It's the geology, really.  Until you've been to Ithaca, you don't know what natural beauty is.  Add to that the presence of a world-class, internationally renowned university, and you've set the stage for a wonderful eclecticism.

People arrive from all over the world to partake of the education, fall in love with the geology and the forests and the peace and the tranquil sense of community that pervades the region and take any job - however menial - just to stay.  And I live at the center of this.  Again, my eyes are tearing.

So people of remarkable intelligence and learning settle here, foregoing wealth in order to remain. This is an interesting dynamic.

Mmph.  In other news,

...on August seventh we shall have a Park Street Pot Luck.  All of the residents of Park street, all 25 or so of us, will attend.  It is a regular affair, the only decision being who shall provide the venue - and I have volunteered for the privilege.  So on the seventh, the neighborhood will converge on my back yard, now occupied, after having been empty for four long years.

Many in this town know the home - I have been told time and again of the bike shop that used to reside in the basement, and the pride of Mr. Brewster over the fact that he had the driest basement on the block.  A portion was even carpeted, I am told.

His son and daughter in law live next door - it is from them we purchased our home.  They took wonderful care of it, and were terribly accommodating during the purchase and moving in.  Ed Brewster is a retired corrections officer, and Penny is a current corrections officer and - of all things - a true roller derby queen, just like in the old Jim Croce song - although much prettier than the the woman in the song, of course.

So I have neighbors, and we speak often, and mid-street conferences are apparently commonplace, judging from today's activities.  It's rather like a large extended family, at first blush.  And everything is so damnably well tended!  And people appear outside their homes, as the weather is so unconscionably pleasant as to be suspect!

Cool evenings in the sixties - the outdoor fire beside which I write is welcome for more than it's light - and sunny days in the high seventies to low eighties, with humidity quite low.

Even the children benefit the neighborhood.  My corner neighbor- down the street a way, a couple I have not met, he a contractor I believe, and she a homemaker, keen for her role, as attested to by the brightly colored rocks painted by her children and adorning her yard.

She is meticulous with it, her yard, and it is indeed pleasant to walk past each day, and tonight as she stood arms about each other with her husband as I passed by, and they waved.

I wish I could do justice to my joy.  It is much as it is when I am in the forest in the fall in New England, and my eyes burn with the fierceness of the colors.  There is at that time of year so much beauty that my soul weeps.

It is similar now - the elements of peace are manifest, the sense that I have at last arrived at a place and a time where I can fit, and belong, and contribute.  I feel welcomed, in a manner I have never before felt, and it feels quite good to be so welcome. 

Mind you - it is now 2330, and still the music plays, a new band now, but the cheers are as loud.  Next year, I shall endeavor to attend this fair.  For now, I am content to listen from afar and record my introduction to this new life.

Enough for now - forgive any errors, I must return to the world.

Small Town

Outside, fireworks cast echoes across the valley.  Somewhere beneath them, a boy sits close to a girl, hands clasped, parents watchful but unobtrusive.  Fireflies glitter.
 
There is so much to write. I despair of ever writing it.  But tonight is sublime, and must be captured.  So I will write now, and hang the hour.

Today is Friday.  I arrived Wednesday after a leisurely two-day drive north across the continent, with a quick (literally - fewer than four hours) stop at my mother's for a visit and to add cargo to the rental truck.  There is much to tell about that trip, the hours of solitude and thought, but that is for another time.

Wednesday night, I parked the truck on the lawn, invited the neighbors for a fire, and later slept.  Thursday and today I have unpacked and unpacked and organized - and I am but halfway finished, and there is more to come, in storage at my mother's, or with Nina!  So much stuff!!  Who has need of it?  For that matter, what is 'need'?

Tonight I sat quietly, listening to music and capturing the pulse of the world via this miracle we call the Internet (should someone saint Al Gore? ;-> ), paying scant attention to the occasional boom in the background earlier in the evening.  (On the phone with my wife, I commented that 'they must be shooting a cannon, or some such' - my half-formed thinking being that, as there is a fair in town, perhaps the local National Guard garrison was an artillery unit or some such, and firing their cannon.)

We are a small town, occupying the level floor of a valley formed by the advance and subsequent retreat of the glaciers during the last ice age.  Steep hills arise on either side, no more than a mile apart.  The valley itself is quite long - containing as it does a lake in most of it, and we being situated on the southern portion of a banana-boat shaped valley, where, if you can imagine it, the water occupies but half its possible maximum.

We thus occupy the shore, as it were, a vast, vegetated, sloping mud flat with glacial silt hills and moraines providing substantial intermediate relief.  Numerous tributaries (running south to north here, and ultimately part of the Lake Superior watershed, that vast weight depressing the crust to our north, the classical mechanics' equivalent of a gravity sink, drawing all towards it) drain the hills into the lake; the valley's ultimate fate will be much drier, but that is tens of centuries away.

So on the first night I had a fire and company.  First up were my western neighbors, Carolynn and Susan and their friend Courtney, all artists, mid fifties to early sixties, earthy and bright and engaging.  The evening continued with a visit from my eastern neighbors and the former owners of my house, Ed and Penny.  We had met previously, so we merely caught up for a bit.

On the first day, I unpacked the house and made a trip to the land, to grab a couple of things from the Abode.  I grabbed a bunch of poles I had cut last fall and saved, as I had spotted Susan gathering long branches from the neighbor's trimmings set out by the road.   I inquired, and she reported pole beans in the backyard, so I offered to bring her a few, and she accepted.

On the second night I relaxed, listened to music, and and caught up on world events.   But first, I walked down to the fair.

It's about a mile to the fairgrounds, which occupy about four acres or a little less to my eye, just inside the levee, on a stretch of flat ground.  A long, shallow, barn-like structure houses several food-service stations, each of which served a different treat: pizza, tacos, beverages - you get the idea.

The proceeds benefit the local fire department - all of them in this region are volunteer departments, unpaid, and purchasing and maintaining equipment is a matter of community involvement.

I settled on tacos - $2 each or three for $5.  I'm accustomed to southern and Mexican tacos, apparently.  Finger Lakes tacos - at least the Moravian variety - are herculean constructions.  First, a corn tortilla is fried on a griddle, without oil.  This guarantees it will disintegrate immediately upon being subjected to even the gentlest of handling.  It is then draped into a cardboard dish, such as french fries are often served in - rectangular, with scalloped sides.  Next, approximately a third of a pound of ground beef, liberally seasoned with taco seasoning, is piled onto the toasted tortilla.

Atop the beef, a ladle full (perhaps half a cup) of diced tomato is added, followed by a generous portion of sliced lettuce, and topped with a thick - no joke - blanket of shredded cheese.  I should have known, as the lady afore me bought the three-for-five deal as well, and the concessionaire offered special packaging to her as it was for 'just one' - and also commented that it should probably provide breakfast as well.

I topped it all with hottest salsa available, and wolfed it all unabashedly at a sun-beaten picnic table in the midst of a half-acre of riotous small-town festival seated with half a dozen folks who had no idea who I was, just that I was clearly hungry.  It was, after all, my first meal that day.

Of course, there was no hope of eating it as an actual taco - it collapsed much too quickly for that.  One rather has no choice but to use one's fingers as a shovel, and perhaps that is part of the allure.  Certainly the infantryman in me doesn't mind.

I'm sure my tablemates surmised I was some wandering (possibly rude - I dunno, I did my best to eat politely) tourist come to check out the local scene, fresh from the state park down the road (Millard Fillmore, the 13th President of These United States, was born just down the road).  For my part, I figured I had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to observe my environment without my environment knowing anything about me at all.  I was gloriously anonymous. 

Today I unpacked as well, but also availed myself of an offer made by my neighbor Ruth - she is my southern neighbor, across the street - to transport me back from Ithaca when I dropped the rental truck off.  The alternative was walking - which I was prepared to do - but preferred not to as it is 20 miles.

It's not so much the mileage, per se, as it is that I haven't really the time to spare just now.

Also, in case you are wondering, my northern neighbor is a wooded hillside which, if surmounted, gives way to a quarry.  Its quite wild, with a population of deer, woodchucks, and various other critters.  The hill continues up, forming the north wall of the valley.  I live at the foot of the north valley wall.

So tonight is now my third night in town - and my second full day.  I was again reflecting on the state of the world when the clear sound of fireworks manifested.  The eureka moment arrived and departed (referring of course, to my earlier comments about cannon fire - the obvious now invaded my consciousness), and I grabbed a tee-shirt and wandered down the street.

Now then, this is what I mean by 'small town':

About a hundred yards down the street is a culvert that drains water from the road leading north and uphill to the trailer park.  The culvert empties into a small ditch by means of a diversion sluice; the ditch then runs perhaps 300 meters across town to the nearest creek and empties therein.  The culvert runs alongside a large field - the athletic field of the local school.  The culvert has the standard concrete facing with a thick iron railing to forestall vehicle accidents.  It was on this facing, my hands grasping the railing overhead, that I sat and watched the fireworks, a scant few-hundred meters away, at the town fairgrounds.

In the field before me were similar spectators, flashlights searching the trees between bursts; voices, half-heard, drifting across the grass. My neighbors, although not yet know to me, nor me to them.  But by chance or by need, we are now kin.  My fate is tied with theirs.

My choices have been made; I have taken the path less traveled.  As has become my motto, and which coda increasingly describes my life,  I am Against the Grain.  I am deliberately so, believing the common path to be misguided and without genuine merit: it is an ersatz life, devoid of actual meaning, pretty and glittering, but lacking in real substance, sugary and sweet but without nutritional content.

The soul starves.

I can walk to anything I need here.  At night it's quiet, and the guy at the pizza parlor remembers me from a few months ago, and asked if I was here for good.  I forgot tomatoes the other day, and so spent a full hour walking first to the library for a card, then to the hardware store for a plug adapter (79 cents) and then to the grocery for the tomatoes.

So I have my tomatoes, and I know all my neighbors, something that never happened in Georgia in all my years in any neighborhood there, and today I got my library card, and I didn't have to prove I lived here, or even prove who I am.  I just gave them my address, and they gave me a library card.  They even gave me a tour of the library.

I'd write more, but I can't hold the tears back any longer.

Stay Gold,

Saintgermane

Farewell, yesterday.

So it's late - very late - Friday evening, or, if you prefer, very early Saturday morning.   Long hours of thinking, flown by like geese headed north.  Mostly silent, some honking now and then. 

I've come to some conclusions.  Conclusion one is, I wish to be a sculptor.  This, I believe, I have always wished: to be a sculptor, to create something.  In point of fact, I might say that I believe I have always been a sculptor, that I am always busily about the process of sculpting something: an object, an environment, a future.


Conclusion two is, I am now halfway through my life. And I realize, at this significant juncture, that until now I have lived my life doing my best to satisfy the expectations of others.  And this is in some sense perhaps legitimate: if we wish to be a part of a society - and I do! - then we had best understand and abide by the reasonable and unbiased expectations of our neighbors.

But there is also the sense that if I am not a net drain on the community - if I am, in fact, either purely neutral from an economic perspective, or if my presence provides some measurable net economic gain, then I should expect to be left pretty much alone.

The Iconic Titles of Our Memories

We are at an ending.  Today it became very real, as my daughter and her girlfriend moved out, into their own apartment.  It is their second attempt.

The first was made a bit hastily, and with no clear understanding of all that independence truly entails, nor with much forethought to the reality the environment is abstract until one is immersed within it, and finds it not at all to ones liking, with no easy solution.  Then it becomes something of which one is very much aware.

So, it was back home to me for a final stay - a very welcome stay, as I have seen far less of my daughter than my son over these past years, and previous attempts at living under my roof inevitably met with my rules.  Until this stay, my rules have always lost.  This is progress.  I am proud.

Johnathen moves out soon, to be ensconced in a gated loft community.  He's on a tight budget and learning to make do; today he asked for mere advice to repair some minor deficiencies on his car, as opposed to asking that I perform the repairs.

He's developed some balance in his life - in his case, a little less play and a little more work, motivated at last by the realization that earning money s actually kind of rewarding.  Perhaps, he's beginning to realize, even more rewarding than merely being given it.

Cooper, bless his soul, schedules time to see me, he works so hard.  This from the boy who did not know how to make himself do things he did not want to do.  His words!  With witnesses!  He now works overtime on a regular basis, manages his affairs in an exemplary fashion, shows concern for everyone and has adopted the role of generational mentor.

He's begun the process of mastering debate and rhetoric and dialogue.  A bit hasty with his words - the ideas are there, but it takes time to learn to articulate them under pressure.  The only recourse is to pause and ask for a moment. 

I look forward to a pipe for my birthday, as he's promised to get me one.

Nina spent the day packing sundry items for the apartment.  This is chaos without her.  Children moving off, house to be placed for rent, unattended closing on the new home in Moravia, then a brief sojourn to unpack the household goods we'll ship in mid April, check our our home, make lists of tasks for the winter, and straightaway right back to work here.

If ever there was a match for my lassaize-faire attitude as regards details, it is her.  A master of organization and planning.  More importantly, she is the kind of woman who is willing to actually roll up her sleeves and get to the work of homesteading, undaunted by the prospect, eager for it even.  And quite smashing in cutoffs, working in the garden, an sun hat hiding her face.  Most importantly, I love her, and know that I am loved by her.

Looking at my turning wood, and figuring what, of all of it, I absolutely positively must not leave behind; and what I might safely give my neighbors for camp-fire wood.

I remarked to Nina, after making the sauce for tomorrow's family dinner, that we are someday going to look back at this period, and in our memories it will hold some pithy title:  The Georgia Years, perhaps.  We all do this - I have my life divided into sections, in my mind, when I think back upon it.

But this will be different, because for all of us this diaspora will be new.  Moreover, it will also be shared.  So, with this eclectic group that has, however mismatched and tattered, come to bond into a family, this chapter's title will at last be not of my naming.

I wonder what we'll call it.

Farewell Uncle Stan, and Thank You for this Last Gift

Just back from a recent trip to New York.  The circumstances were rather sad - my Uncle Stanly recently passed.  But some good comes from almost every life event, and as we gathered to honor a favorite uncle, a dear friend, a wonderful father, and a pillar of the local community, many of us reconnected for the first time in many years - in some case, nearly three decades.

I don't know that we would have gathered absent my uncle's passing, and so we owe him a final debt, and a final thank you.  Godspeed, uncle, and farewell.  You will live on in our memories, and that is a handsome thing to have said about one.  I hope to have half so many gathered when my time comes.

To those whom I have just met, or with whom I have reunited, thank you for your courtesy to one of the more wayward of the family.  I - we - are coming home, and I look forward to knowing each of you more fully.  As well, I look forward to knowing those new souls you have brought onto this earth - the nephews and nieces and friends and spouses and the sundry folks accompanying them.

I've posted some new pictures, and rearranged the content somewhat.  I'll be blogging a bit more often now, as well, as matters accelerate into the summer, and add pictures as I have time, so that when you meet my now mostly grown family, you'll at least know to whom you are speaking.

In the meantime, if you're curious to know who I've become, this is, I suppose, as good a place as any to start.

Vito - thanks for the picture of Uncle Stan.