DeLIGHTful Orcas Home

We arrived on our land last night around 5:30pm, therefore seemingly in the middle of the night. Unbeknownst to us before our arrival, Burke and the team had placed a small tree on the pinnacle of our cupola and lit it up with white lights. Ian and I both teared up at the beauty, but also at the sweetness of the gesture. There was no need for this, but it is utterly delightful, and, for us, a much-appreciated and completely unexpected gift in the middle of a season that has been over-packed with Life Experiences. We're here for a week, and hope to ring in the New Year with a toast to each other in our new home (maybe at Central Time New Year--see above "over-packed", etc.).

Happy New Year, everyone, if I don't post again this trip (but I might), and enjoy the latest pictures here. 

Happy Winter!

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Season's Greetings, Welcome Solstice, and everything else,

for the LAST WINTER IN WALLINGFORD. 

That's right: Calin, Ian, and Spackle are moving to Orcas, before the Equinox. 

Watch our home progress here!

Land Shaping

There is no vegetative landscaping happening yet around our lovely home, but this week the excavator has been back, and he's an artist with stone and dirt! I love the rockeries, and the house is looking more and more like it belongs where it's going. Enjoy the latest photos here!

Photo Update

This shot, which I love, aims directly from our bed to our toilet. 

I learned last weekend, in the short, 2-night visit and beginning of the move into the guest house where we will be staying, full-time starting this spring--until the house is finished--and during any island visits until then--that two nights are not enough. Three nights minimum is my plan from here on out.

If you're confused by the timing discussed in the above paragraph, I'm here to tell you: Rightly so.

We feel a bit like we're on a pilgrimage, and that each lodging along the way is readying us to be absolutely thrilled when we're finally HOME. Years ago, we started with a tent. Then we built the Dacha (as I'm wont to say, glorified camping until the first major fly infestation, and from then on a really sucky house). In November I rented a drafty, smoky, tiny beach shack for a week, where I had electricity and an indoor toilet and a straight shot out to North Beach but, drafty, smoky. Now we're in the small home where we'll stay until HOME is finished, and it's even better--electricity, indoor plumbing, mostly furnished (but we're bringing my piano and our guest bed), a much better-appointed kitchen than the beach shack (although missing some strange items--I mean, strangely missing some very necessary items, such as spoons--there are two teaspoons for eating, and that's it, but about 20 bowls) . . . but it's small compared to a house, and it's someone else's (I haven't rented in 15 years), and, well, you know.

At the moment, we sort-of have four homes, including the one in-progress, the Hogan House (which is the name of the guest house we're renting), the Dacha, and Taylor Wallingford. If I haven't responded to something you've emailed me about recently, it's because your note, like so many other parts of my life right now, is somewhere in the tornado of details.

And, that's all the time I have to spend on this right now! BUT, I remembered!

Here is the time-lapse video link!: http://youtu.be/YoppvgZS9zs

And new photos are posted!

These horses are TIRED!

Holiday Wishes

This, seen in Edison, on our way up to Bellingham from Orcas, for dinner with Ian's dad this evening. And below, please appreciate the rest of the fine display. Merry Christmas everyone, for Christ's sake.

Wish I Could Sit Here All Day

View from our guest house; beginning of my Orcas Sweater.

one-fingered on my phone

Key Insight

As I was packing Thursday night for our weekend trip to Orcas, I found myself in a familiar, futile thought circle, triggered, in this case, by the fact that yesterday I picked up the key for the guest house we're renting for the next several months.

I had told the owners I was coming around noon, and the fact that I decided late Thursday to take the later boat led me into the swirl: what if they judge me for keeping the heat at a higher level than they would? What if they think I'm using too much water? What if I come and go more than they'd like? and etc. As I have come to do recently, though, I took myself to task and remonstrated: they are NOT doing you a favor, Calin, you are RENTING the place, for the price they asked. You have the right to live as makes you comfortable.

And then, somehow, I realized that it was the act of picking up the key, that was--yes--the key to my struggle. Collecting this key is our first tangible step toward moving out of Seattle.

What? you say. That sturdy, fanciful house isn't tangible? Well, no, not really, not yet. Right now, our dream house is a delight and a frustration--it's gorgeous and we can walk around in it and anyone who has driven by it knows of it when we introduce ourselves (which has been, so far, everyone)--but there are still a billion details to work out, and a couple hundred more nights to sleep elsewhere.

Even though my heart moved on to Orcas last summer, it was still blissfully involved with the beauties and delights that have graced our Seattle home for the 14 years we've been living there together.

I realized as I was packing that we spent our youth in that home. We learned to be ourselves there, together. We learned to mourn. We learned to be goofy. We learned how to disagree with each other, but much more often, we've laughed at ourselves for the coincidence of our impulses and our commentary. We learned to be ecstatic. We learned how to get along with others, and how to recognize when we needed to make our own, sometimes unpopular, choices.

We were children when we met, and now we're adults, and all that growth and learning took place at 3902 Wallingford.

I stood for a long time at the end of the bed Thursday night, my hands resting on my mostly-packed duffle, watching years of experiences pass by in my mind's eye, grieving, laughing (sometimes ruefully), and remembering.

Wallingford, and our snug little house, were exactly the shelter I needed during those callow years.

I am so grateful.

one-fingered on my phone