Understanding what you need or want out of your days is a process. When I was an adolescent, I thought that if I had the attention, the love of my boyfriend, I would need nothing more. Happiness would be mine. (And in the few weeks we were "together," my cup was indeed full, running over in fact.) But it's all a process, isn't it? You tweak things. By trial and error mostly. There are things you think are important, yet they prove to be unattainable. You try something new. You indulge some fantasies. Reject others. Money is a problem. Health can be a problem. Sometimes you you wish you hadn't gone there. Sometimes you know you shouldn't have gone there. And yet, sometimes the pieces fit.
I think about all this because I really feel now like I did as a 16 year old who had her first encounter with reciprocal love. Or, what I thought was love. Giddy with delight. And now here I am at 73, again feeling so damn lucky to be where I am right now: with the kids, grandkids. Ed. Millie. Friends (life is never perfect -- I do wish they were physically closer). Retirement. A home that has everything I could possibly need -- at the top of the list? A quiet neighborhood (except for Millie's barking last night, but she had an excuse!), a cottage with an open floor plan with lots of windows. A small garden for me to manage and love. A wee fenced yard where Millie can let loose and have her zoomies. A neat, clean, pile-free interior with everything in its place. And a porch. This porch, where we have our first breakfast together.
Now about last night: once traumatized by the angry dogs, Millie never quite recovered in the evening. The fireworks and firecrackers were constant. All evening long. Pops, booms, bangs. She is not phobic about fireworks (I know many dogs are), but it was just too much, and the new place was beyond her comprehension, She sat on the chair by the window (who said its my reading corner? It's our shared reading corner!) and alternated between barking and looking wildly at everything that fluttered or twinkled outside, until we went to bed upstairs, where she finally settled down.
She did sleep well and so did I. First time for a long time. And in the morning she was tentative, but certainly better than last night. Once I put up the gate by the porch stairs outside, she had the freedom to roam there and she loved that. No one was out so early in the morning and she just took at the world at her own pace.
Afterwards, we went inside and I put up artwork. Millie appropriated her best seat ever.
The downstairs is now finished! I thought she was due for a morning nap so I crated the girl and stepped out to do some yard work. Millie had gotten over her separation anxiety and I'd been able to leave her easily for even three hours without a wince or yelp. Not today. The minute I was out of eyesight, the howling began. I tried a return and a re-exit. Nope. Still howling. Obviously she needs to work up to it again. Not today though. Let's get her used to the new home first.
I took her to the back yard and sat with her there. She loves the outdoors and she sniffed and played and finally settled under the bench. If I stepped outside the fence area, she'd yelp. If someone went by, she yapped. But slowly she yelped and yapped less. I'd come in and out of her fenced yard and it was okay. For short spells. I planted three plants and watered a corner of the yard and she was fine. An occasional woof, but easily settled. We are making progress!
At around noon, Ed came over to help me build a small daybed for the upstairs playroom. Millie had been calming down but the emergence of two huge boxes (with bed parts) unnerved her all over again. I can see it in her alert eyes -- when will this drama end?? Soon, dear one. Soon.
Once the bed is built, the three of us walk over to Tati's for lunch. Familiar stuff at last for the old girl!
I have to wonder what she is thinking: how is it that we walk back, the same (for the most part) two blocks, but at the end of the walk, we are not what I understood to be our home??
Ed leaves then and I go back to hanging up art. Most of it has hung on one wall or another. They're all favorites, from a lifetime of not having the money for it, but loving nonetheless the idea of joyful art on the wall. Three of my nephew's paintings now are in place. A piece from an Ocean friend. A poster from this year's trip to St Paul de Vance. A painting I picked up in the village of Giverny from the years I used to stay there overnight on repeat. A print of Chopin's house. A very bright painting from the artist who lived next door when I spent three weeks in Pierrerue France. A small painting from my apartment years in Warsaw. A print of a piece that accompanied my article for the NYTimes. And so on.
Steffi's House is done. Sure, it's an ongoing project -- how you live in it, how you tend to the flowers and care for the birds that come and visit -- it doesn't stop with the last nail pounded into the wall. But it's all a new chapter for me. The pieces fit into one complex canvas and again I have this blissful feeling that at this moment, I'm in a very special place.
with so much love...
