I don’t know that I’ve ever loved a home like Winterpast. She and I have this quiet little affair which started the day I found her nestled among others on Realtor.Com. I found her and did research to be sure I could pay the bills should I suddenly be alone. Although VST wasn’t yet ill, the next home could be the place where our lives changed. How little did I know. Planning for the future, I factored in many things. Square feet to vacuum. Kitchen cabinets to fill. Closet space. A room for everything. Single level. Then, I shared the MLS listing with VST. He saw the RV barn and it was a done deal.
VST was a man that had to be doing and going. Dunmovin was our current day Winchester House. Something was always in a state of rejuvenation with VST around. Now, my two industrial strength table saws, saw horses, drills, bits, and KregTool sit in the garage with all their friends. Tools I don’t know how to use or even identify lay as testament to the man I loved. I don’t open the drawers very often for the site makes me cry every time.
VST never actually lived here at Winterpast. It would have resulted in divorce or another move, (a huge remodel at the very least), for we both have large territorial footprints. For all she is, Winterpast wouldn’t have been big enough for two. At least not VST and me. But, for one desert gal, she’s just right.
This morning, waking slowly, I was thinking about the word HOME and what it means to different people. For the last two decades, home has meant a private space in which to say what I want to say, while doing whatever I want to do. To VST, home was a place for improvements before the vicissitudes of life would demand change or adjustment. VST didn’t live long enough to practice lazy. A true shame, because, as Auntie TJ taught me well, practicing lazy is an art.
Every morning, I look at an embroidery piece my mother completed in 1940, the year she married my father.
Of all the roads
Both East and West
The one that leads
To home is best.
Framed in a handmade oak frame treated with amber shellac, I remember this hanging in the bedroom hallway of my childhood home. A reminder of what home should be for the 19 years I lived there; it’s the one thing from my childhood home that made sense. I wanted my home to be THAT place for family and friends.
When VST was alive, home was wherever together was. It mattered not. On the beaches of the Central California Coast. Hunkered down during a tornado warning in Oklahoma. Under the big sky of Montana. Listening to buffalo speak in Wyoming. A full moon night on Waikiki Beach. Sawing, staining, and hammering decks late into the night. Home meant together.
Now, I’m learning home isn’t defined by another. It’s a feeling in your gut. You know when you find it. You know even more when you’re there. That’s home for me. And now, Home Means Nevada.
As a teacher, I would wait for the first day of summer. People hold this over our heads with disgust.
“But, YOU, have summers off.”
Well. True. Summer days are days off without pay. People forget that teachers are paid for X number of days per year. In my case, it was 185. Place those teaching days however you like, but 185 was the number multiplied by a daily rate. Yearly salaries are divided by 1/12th to provide a paycheck each month, just so educators don’t starve during the summer. I assure you, one is paid for a fixed number of days. Period. Having those unpaid days strung together was, indeed, something I waited for. Ever teacher needs time to decompress with time to enjoy their own private life.
Driving home on Day 185, I would repeat the same phrase over and over.
“The summer is rich with possibilities.”
The biggest certainty was that I could stay home for weeks on end, never leaving my little mountaintop. Rambling around the property, I could enjoy a mix of nesting, hobbies, gardening, polishing, reading, writing, thinking, and resting. VST would leave in the morning, looking dapper in his starched shirt, slacks, and tie. Shoes polished. Keys in one hand and a diet coke in the other, with a kiss and hug he was out the door. Sweet solitude at home has always been the happiest of places for me.
Some people go stir crazy in one place too long. Covid quarantine must be sheer torture for them. They get bored. Well, bored is another word for a lazy mind. Before television, computers, video games and other forms of artificial intelligence, there was the real thing. I could spend a day reading a well written book in which the words transported me into other worlds. Who hasn’t been engulfed in a novel you simply cannot stop reading? Just remember a certain trilogy that came out a few years back. Seems it had the entire female population reading into the wee hours of the morning.
My Winterpast knows things. She’s a wise house, understanding why some days, the curtains are better drawn than left open. I felt it the first time I entered her walls. There’s a spirit of kindness and knowing left behind just for me. It was my job to turn her into my home, while setting down roots in the gardens out back. Both accomplished.
Miss Firecracker and I were talking the other day. I was whining a bit, (Okay Miss Firecracker, A Lot), and she was sharing her wisdom. (Miss Firecracker, I depend on your wisdom and insight. Don’t forget that.) I hadn’t been clear on a few things I shared, making it seem I was unhappy with my choice of a dusty little wide spot in the road.
“Well, maybe this wasn’t the town for you. Maybe you should move.”
What? Impossible! Not happening! As for me, I’ve found my home. It’s here. Winterpast.
Home. Roots. Stability. Domestic security. Inner Peace. Healing. Happiness.
Winterpast is all those things to me. For now, she definitely qualifies as HOME. Perhaps the most truthful and gracious home I’ve ever loved.
Today is a day of writing, nesting, and quiet reflection. The leaves can wait another day. Of all the roads both East and West the one that leads to home is BEST. Saving on gas, I’m already here. Have a wonderful day.