When I last wrote—far too long ago—we had decided to put our house on Lake Martin up for sale. Like many people our age, we had recognized the need to simplify our lives: fewer possessions, less space, less maintenance and more time.
As with so many other people, there was a gap in recognizing the need and doing something about it. And there was a gap between deciding to do something about it and actually getting something done.
People came and looked at the house. Some of them liked it. But none of them fell in love with it. Our desire to downsize didn't have a hard deadline, and when the listing expired, we took the house off the market. We went through the motions of ridding ourselves of some of our excess possessions, but the fact is, as long as you have a place to put things, you tend to hang onto them.
This year, as winter faded into spring, we offered the house for sale again. And this time, someone fell in love with it.
Suddenly, downsizing was no longer a vague goal but a looming reality.
So, barring the unexpected, in a matter of weeks, this Letter From the Lake should more appropriately be called a Letter From the Village.
Our lives have been a series of adventures, and this latest chapter has had some unexpected twists of its own. After all, we had lived in on Lake Martin longer than we had lived anyplace since we got married, and we had no urgent call to get away. Each morning we watched the sun light up the ridge and then the houses along the shore across the slough, and in the evening we lingered at the table as the twilight slipped into darkness, and every single day we knew how fortunate we were to be there. We had never been to Dadeville before we bought our little piece of paradise, and finding a community where we put down solid roots was lagniappe.
Even as we were putting the house on the market, we weren't thinking about moving away from the community where we had put down so many roots. With deliberation we had not shopped for a new home before ours was sold; there was no point in falling in love with a place that might not be available when we looked in earnest. Finally, when we did look in earnest, it was quickly obvious that our ideal place—single level, small house requiring little maintenance—was not available on the water, at least not without paying a healthy geographical premium.
Opelika/Auburn had not crept into our consciousness as a possible place to live, even though Adelaide had received her master's and doctorate from Auburn University and our younger son earned his bachelor's degree there.
The realization that it just might be home was serendipitous. A friend on the lake whose husband died several years ago was also confronting the downsizing issue. Like us, she had too much space, too much maintenance and too far to go for some of the amenities she wanted. She had eliminated a number of possibilities and was focusing on Opelika/Auburn. And in that area, one of the possibilities was National Village, on the grounds of Grand National, the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail facility developed by the Retirement Systems of Alabama.
Knowing that RSA was behind the project was an additional draw; RSA boss David Bronner's name isn't associated with shoddy stuff.
We made several visits to National Village with our friend and several more on our own.
National Village, we thought, might be a good choice for us. We visited multiple times, talked with people who lived there and looked at the houses. All of the vibrations were positive. Finally, we picked a lot, selected plan and put our money down. Before we left the lake, we made numerous trips to the Thrift Store at Children's Harbor, often carrying things we'd forgotten that we had. And when the good people from the Thrift Store brought their truck to our house, we filled it up, too.
Still, we moved too much to the apartment that is our temporary home, and some of the non-profit thrift stores nearby have benefitted from our excess. Even so, I expect that we will find that we have moved things we don't need into the new digs. Sometimes I recall fondly the discipline imposed by our brief period of living on a boat; with finite space, if you got something new, you needed to get rid of something old. We will try to build that discipline again.
Building a house is an invitation to stress—the last time we built a house I swore I'd never do it again—but our builder tells us our new home will be ready by the middle of August. Assuming there are no last minute hitches, that will give us time to move things and get them put away in stages and still be moved before our apartment lease runs out and football season kicks off.
For the moment, we're just hoping that no hitches develop.
Contact the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Sunday, April 1, 2012
An Especially Poignant Spring
Spring arrives at our half hill in a rush. One day everything seems bare, even dead. The next buds are swelling into blooms, leaves emerge, and the whole picture changes. The wild azaleas put on their brief show of delicate beauty (meanwhile, the cultivated but neglected domesticated azalea in the back flower bed outdoes itself with blossoms. The native hydrangeas, which all winter look like a collection of dead sticks, put out the most tender green leaves, luminous when backlighted. Soon they will take on their familiar oak leaf shape. The dogwoods are especially showy this year. Old Susanna Road leading out from town and Quail Hollow Drive, our street, have become an avenue of white. Even our cautious white oak trees are joining in the proclamation of spring.
And the other day, sitting on our front deck, we heard -- heard, not saw -- our favorite proclamation of the season: the laughter of children floating across the slough. It has been spring break time for the schools, and even though it was March, the water was high enough, and warm enough, for the children to make the most of it.
The water at the end of our dock is high enough that friends had no trouble picking us up one evening for a picnic on one of the islands.
Spring does bring pollen and catkins, too, but that's a small price for having trees.
This is an especially poignant spring, because it probably will be our last on this blessed spot.
We have lived in this house, first as weekenders and then as full-timers, longer than we have lived in any house. We wanted a place where our children and their children could come and bring their friends, a place with plenty of room for them and yet private space for us. We wanted the house to fit onto our half hill, among the trees, and to look as if belonged there. We got all of that and more.
But times and people change. The children cannot come as often as they once did, and the grandchildren are at the age when they need calendars to keep up with all of their activities. It is wonderful when they can come, but for most of the year we have way too much space to heat and cool and clean, and we have figured out that if the kids get an opportunity to come for a week or two, it would be more economical to put them up in a condo.
Still, it is not only the trees that have put down roots here. We bought and built because of the water, but we have found in Dadeville a sense of community that makes us look forward to coming home when we are away. Nor could we ask for better neighbors. We would love to find a way to live within a stone's throw of where we are now; certainly we don't want to move more than a mile or too.
It was late in the summer when we made the decision to put the house on the market, knowing that it was unlikely to sell during the winter. We went through the ritual of thinning out and throwing away, but only in a desultory fashion. With a new season bursting upon us, the task of deciding what to keep and what to sell, give or throw away takes on a new urgency. Still, until the clock is ticking I will delay making decisions on some possessions. Our real estate agent, Linda Shaffer, has posted lots of photos on her web site (http://www.flexmls.com/share/1iZp/377-Quail-Hollow-Dadeville-AL-36853). If you know someone who is looking to live in paradise, you might tell them about it.
When we first began coming to this house, we arrived eagerly on Friday nights and left reluctantly on Monday mornings. After we moved here full-time, we reminded ourselves that people plan all year to spend a week or two with what we have every day. Soon or later, we will be faced with packing up and moving out, but until that happens we will regard each day as a special gift.
Contact the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
And the other day, sitting on our front deck, we heard -- heard, not saw -- our favorite proclamation of the season: the laughter of children floating across the slough. It has been spring break time for the schools, and even though it was March, the water was high enough, and warm enough, for the children to make the most of it.
The water at the end of our dock is high enough that friends had no trouble picking us up one evening for a picnic on one of the islands.
Spring does bring pollen and catkins, too, but that's a small price for having trees.
This is an especially poignant spring, because it probably will be our last on this blessed spot.
We have lived in this house, first as weekenders and then as full-timers, longer than we have lived in any house. We wanted a place where our children and their children could come and bring their friends, a place with plenty of room for them and yet private space for us. We wanted the house to fit onto our half hill, among the trees, and to look as if belonged there. We got all of that and more.
But times and people change. The children cannot come as often as they once did, and the grandchildren are at the age when they need calendars to keep up with all of their activities. It is wonderful when they can come, but for most of the year we have way too much space to heat and cool and clean, and we have figured out that if the kids get an opportunity to come for a week or two, it would be more economical to put them up in a condo.
Still, it is not only the trees that have put down roots here. We bought and built because of the water, but we have found in Dadeville a sense of community that makes us look forward to coming home when we are away. Nor could we ask for better neighbors. We would love to find a way to live within a stone's throw of where we are now; certainly we don't want to move more than a mile or too.
It was late in the summer when we made the decision to put the house on the market, knowing that it was unlikely to sell during the winter. We went through the ritual of thinning out and throwing away, but only in a desultory fashion. With a new season bursting upon us, the task of deciding what to keep and what to sell, give or throw away takes on a new urgency. Still, until the clock is ticking I will delay making decisions on some possessions. Our real estate agent, Linda Shaffer, has posted lots of photos on her web site (http://www.flexmls.com/share/1iZp/377-Quail-Hollow-Dadeville-AL-36853). If you know someone who is looking to live in paradise, you might tell them about it.
When we first began coming to this house, we arrived eagerly on Friday nights and left reluctantly on Monday mornings. After we moved here full-time, we reminded ourselves that people plan all year to spend a week or two with what we have every day. Soon or later, we will be faced with packing up and moving out, but until that happens we will regard each day as a special gift.
Contact the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
Saturday, November 12, 2011
The Way the Current Set Me
Cousin,
You said you'd be interested in a narrative of my latest medical adventure when I had time to write it. Well, it's 4:30 in the morning, an hour earlier than my usual rising time, and I'm wide awake, and writing is a better use of time than surfing the internet or even working the crossword puzzle I didn't get to yesterday.
Often things happen out of the blue; certainly this latest brush with mortality seemed to.
But it's like piloting a boat across a tidal inlet: Sometimes the best way to see where you're actually going is to look back at your wake. In this latest case, I was confident in my compass -- the three bypasses I had thought would last as long as I did -- and I damn near ended up on the rocks.
Things got choppy on a Saturday two weeks ago. The started with me feeling vaguely crummy; nothing specifically wrong, just not a bundle of energy. Later in the day, I was helping Adelaide plant some pansies down by the seawall. When I walked back up to the house, not a great distance, I was really out of breath. I also felt a tightness in my chest. Not pain, not even that squeezing feeling that people often describe. Just a tightness that I still can't say whether was real or psychosomatic. I took my blood pressure. It was higher than it should be, but not dangerously so.
Then I tried to do what we so often do: deny what is. It's arguing that you've followed that safe course on the compass while hearing the surf pounding in your ears.
I'd played 18 holes of golf in Auburn the day before and then driven with Adelaide over to Clanton to pick up a car we were thinking about buying. Earlier in the week I had been in the gym at least a couple of times, including good sessions on the stationary bike, and had taken at least one good, long walk.
But, dammit, something just wasn't right, and we decided to go to the emergency room on the theory that a false alarm was better than a real one unheeded.
Potential heart attacks get prompt attention in the ER. They gave me some stuff that would help if I were having a heart attack, including aspirin, and did an EKG, took an X-ray and drew some blood. The ER physician said the EKG and X-ray looked normal, and there was nothing in the blood chemistry to indicate a heart attack, but he had talked with my cardiologist, who said they should keep me overnight and that he would look in on me on Sunday.
It turned out to be a good call.
Although my EKG looked normal, it looked different than the last one I'd had when I had my annual checkup with him in February, a checkup that included an echo cardiogram and a stress test, which did not reveal any imminent dangers. My cholesterol and triglycerides had been good, too.
There was enough question to warrant a heart on Monday, so I spent a second night in the hospital.
I really didn't think he was going to find anything (denial again), but he emerged from the procedure to tell Adelaide that he had found scar tissue creating blockages at all three sites where veins had been grafted onto the arteries. They scheduled sessions to put in stents on Friday and the following Monday. The reason for doing it in two sessions was that the dye they use in the procedure can damage the kidneys if there's too much of it in the blood.
Adelaide didn't even have to work hard to keep me from doing much physical activity while we waited for Friday, and I plenty of time to ruminate about how I got to this point.
After the bypasses (three years and a month earlier) I had worked at keeping fit and at eating wisely. While I hadn't limited my diet to leaves and twigs, a hamburger was a rare treat; we didn't eat red meat of any kind very often. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had bacon. We always used skim milk and put flax seed meal on our oatmeal or cereal in the mornings.
But I had to admit, I had not gotten as much exercise during the hot, dry summer (which around here seemed to start in May and is just now ending) as I ordinarily do. And I had noticed that I would be breathing a little hard when I began some activity, although that went away after I got going. And I was a little slower going up hills than I used to, but I didn't have to stop to catch my breath. And I am 70 years old; that ought to account for some slowing down.
So there were signs, but doggone subtle ones.
On that Friday the doctor put four stents in one artery, and on Monday he put in two more stents, one in each of two arteries.
As I'm recovering, I've thought about my brother and sister. My sis, a year older than I, has always eaten pretty much what she wanted, and what she wanted was often fried or salty or sweet. My brother, four and a half years younger, is a very disciplined eater. Both of them have coronary systems to envy. I think they inherited genes from my mother's side of the family. My inheritance, apparently comes from the Brown side of the family, not particularly noted for longevity.
Even if fate has drawn the line on the chart, though, I will keep trying to account for the current.
You recently sent me a copy of one of your favorite poems. There is a poignant line: How dull it is to pause, to make an end, / To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
I can promise that I will not rust unburnish'd.
Cousin Bill
Contact the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
You said you'd be interested in a narrative of my latest medical adventure when I had time to write it. Well, it's 4:30 in the morning, an hour earlier than my usual rising time, and I'm wide awake, and writing is a better use of time than surfing the internet or even working the crossword puzzle I didn't get to yesterday.
Often things happen out of the blue; certainly this latest brush with mortality seemed to.
But it's like piloting a boat across a tidal inlet: Sometimes the best way to see where you're actually going is to look back at your wake. In this latest case, I was confident in my compass -- the three bypasses I had thought would last as long as I did -- and I damn near ended up on the rocks.
Things got choppy on a Saturday two weeks ago. The started with me feeling vaguely crummy; nothing specifically wrong, just not a bundle of energy. Later in the day, I was helping Adelaide plant some pansies down by the seawall. When I walked back up to the house, not a great distance, I was really out of breath. I also felt a tightness in my chest. Not pain, not even that squeezing feeling that people often describe. Just a tightness that I still can't say whether was real or psychosomatic. I took my blood pressure. It was higher than it should be, but not dangerously so.
Then I tried to do what we so often do: deny what is. It's arguing that you've followed that safe course on the compass while hearing the surf pounding in your ears.
I'd played 18 holes of golf in Auburn the day before and then driven with Adelaide over to Clanton to pick up a car we were thinking about buying. Earlier in the week I had been in the gym at least a couple of times, including good sessions on the stationary bike, and had taken at least one good, long walk.
But, dammit, something just wasn't right, and we decided to go to the emergency room on the theory that a false alarm was better than a real one unheeded.
Potential heart attacks get prompt attention in the ER. They gave me some stuff that would help if I were having a heart attack, including aspirin, and did an EKG, took an X-ray and drew some blood. The ER physician said the EKG and X-ray looked normal, and there was nothing in the blood chemistry to indicate a heart attack, but he had talked with my cardiologist, who said they should keep me overnight and that he would look in on me on Sunday.
It turned out to be a good call.
Although my EKG looked normal, it looked different than the last one I'd had when I had my annual checkup with him in February, a checkup that included an echo cardiogram and a stress test, which did not reveal any imminent dangers. My cholesterol and triglycerides had been good, too.
There was enough question to warrant a heart on Monday, so I spent a second night in the hospital.
I really didn't think he was going to find anything (denial again), but he emerged from the procedure to tell Adelaide that he had found scar tissue creating blockages at all three sites where veins had been grafted onto the arteries. They scheduled sessions to put in stents on Friday and the following Monday. The reason for doing it in two sessions was that the dye they use in the procedure can damage the kidneys if there's too much of it in the blood.
Adelaide didn't even have to work hard to keep me from doing much physical activity while we waited for Friday, and I plenty of time to ruminate about how I got to this point.
After the bypasses (three years and a month earlier) I had worked at keeping fit and at eating wisely. While I hadn't limited my diet to leaves and twigs, a hamburger was a rare treat; we didn't eat red meat of any kind very often. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had bacon. We always used skim milk and put flax seed meal on our oatmeal or cereal in the mornings.
But I had to admit, I had not gotten as much exercise during the hot, dry summer (which around here seemed to start in May and is just now ending) as I ordinarily do. And I had noticed that I would be breathing a little hard when I began some activity, although that went away after I got going. And I was a little slower going up hills than I used to, but I didn't have to stop to catch my breath. And I am 70 years old; that ought to account for some slowing down.
So there were signs, but doggone subtle ones.
On that Friday the doctor put four stents in one artery, and on Monday he put in two more stents, one in each of two arteries.
As I'm recovering, I've thought about my brother and sister. My sis, a year older than I, has always eaten pretty much what she wanted, and what she wanted was often fried or salty or sweet. My brother, four and a half years younger, is a very disciplined eater. Both of them have coronary systems to envy. I think they inherited genes from my mother's side of the family. My inheritance, apparently comes from the Brown side of the family, not particularly noted for longevity.
Even if fate has drawn the line on the chart, though, I will keep trying to account for the current.
You recently sent me a copy of one of your favorite poems. There is a poignant line: How dull it is to pause, to make an end, / To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
I can promise that I will not rust unburnish'd.
Cousin Bill
Contact the writer at billatthelake@gmail.com
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Some Instructions Are Just Too Stupid
I don't think I am growing more prickly (some might argue that would be impossible) but I increasingly chafe at being told what to do by people who have no business doing so. There are enough people who are in a position to tell you what to do, and who often insist on your doing stupid things, but I am not talking about them. Them I avoid as much as possible and grudgingly comply when there is no alternative.
No, it is the more mundane things that set me off.
Like the envelope from someone who is trying to sell me something that states prominently "Do Not Discard." Naturally, those envelopes go directly into the waste basket; I'm thinking of leaving an all-weather waste can by the mailbox.
The marketers don't like to be ignored, though, and they get more insistent. I am holding an envelope that, in addition to my name and address, includes these phrases: "Official Documents Enclosed." "Official Notification." "Requires Immediate Response." "SECOND NOTICE." "Time Sensitive Communication." Well, duh. Guess where that envelope is going?
Maybe tossing their missives isn't the answer. I am considering saving a stack of the envelopes -- unopened -- until I have a large stack and then mailing all of them back to the sender. With luck, I'll open one of the envelopes and find a postage-paid reply envelope and use it to send the accumulation back.
Almost as annoying is the recorded message that urges you to hold for an important message. I used to hang up immediately, but now I just lay the phone down and go about my business. I like to think I'm using enough of their time to save someone else from getting a call.
At least in the above situations, I have the choice of whether to open the envelope or hold for the call.
One night recently, I had a choice of whether to respond to a stupid instruction, but exercising my choice saved me no time. I was trapped.
It was an event that included a talent segment. The mistress and master of ceremonies took turns introducing each contestant and then going offstage.
The contestant performed. The audience applauded. And the master/mistress of ceremonies returned to the stage with the instruction to give the performer another round of applause, even as the original applause was fading. Not once, not twice, but every single time.
Excuse me, but isn't applause like a tip: something that is earned.
I sat on my hands thinking that if it weren't for all the phony enthusiasm, the contestants could have more time to show off their talent. And the applause would have been truly earned.
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