HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM THE WITCHES FORMERLY OF THE YELLOW COTTAGE AND NOW OF THE CHARMING WRECK

Hello, Friends and Family!  Thundergirl and I want to wish you a happy and healthy holiday season, and also to tell you a little about our 2013.

We started the year, as usual, with the rainbow Christmas tree still aglow from ’12.  It’s so hard to say goodbye, and with an artificial tree, there’s no expiration date!  So, we kept it up until Valentine’s Day.  We did consider hanging hearts over the snowmen, but changed our minds when we realized that the “adding” could go on forever, with shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day, eggs and bunnies for Easter…

In March, I began a new job working out of state.  My dear friend Kelly’s family started a new jewelry store in eastern Kentucky, and he asked me to travel there on days when Thundergirl stayed with her father.  What an adventure!  Traveling to a new part of the country really felt like traveling to a new country.  Sometimes, the town of Hickman literally became an island.  Being right there on the Mississippi during spring rains can get pretty soggy!  And I never really did cross the language barrier, but I learned enough to get by.  Before I left for good, I was lucky enough to get to know Squirrel the Cat.  She has been part of the family since May, as an early birthday gift for Thunder.  She earned her name with her lovely half-Tabby-half-Abbysinnian coat and her amazing climbing skills!  We almost lost her to a lung infection after a surgery, but we learned that the stress of separation is too much for her to bear and her immune system becomes compromised when she is alone in strange places.  Lots of TLC and tuna worked magic, and she has been one of the best things to come out of my temporary life as a gold dealer in Kentucky!

I stayed in that position with the company for three or four months, and now I work locally for Kelly’s other business that he co-owns with my cousin Bill.  I am a salesperson-slash-researcher-slash-token “girl” at Marine Coin Company in Marine, IL.  Our customers range from little old ladies getting rid of broken jewelry to young numismatists searching for that exact date of that exact penny to finish off their coin collections!  We also do a brisk business in gold and silver bullion sales, which our customers see as a smart investment for the future.  Speaking of the future, we also offer dehydrated and freeze-dried meals for your long-term food needs.  If you get snacky in twenty-five years, you can pour some boiling water into a foil pack and have amazing pasta alfredo with chicken in under twenty minutes.  Our unofficial motto is, “It’s better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it!”

Thundergirl and I have experienced some big, big changes this fall, too.  After experiencing an assault (on the heels of a break-in earlier this year)  at the Yellow Cottage, Thunder and I have a new home.  We live in the house on Troy Road where I first lived in 2003, which by coincidence is now the home of my sweetheart, Geoff.  He christened it The Charming Wreck, and he sure got the “charming” part right! I can’t bring myself to call a home filled with so much joy a “wreck” of any kind. He and his amazing daughters have welcomed us–and Squirrel–into their lives, and we are blessed to be a part of such a wonderful family.  What could be seen as a tragedy, a shocking random attack in the night, has become a confirmation of the true meaning of love.  Many friends lent help with our move while we recovered, and we owe great thanks to the generous people who stood up for us when we could not do it for ourselves. We are very, very lucky to be safe and healthy.

Geoff is a joy to share a home with, and our natures seem to compliment one another well.  I love to cook and putter in the kitchen, and he claims to enjoy doing laundry!  I may never stop being amazed at my clothes appearing clean and folded with no effort from me!  I am re-learning the art of preparing meals for many tastes, but so far, I haven’t had too many serious “flops”.  We have three uniquely-opinioned palates to please: one committed vegetarian, one suspicious of anything not composed of peanut butter and jelly on white with no crust, and one who would maybe rather leave the veggies off the plate entirely!  Planning suppers keeps me creative in the kitchen, and I really enjoy the process. I hope my captive audience enjoys my results!

Squirrel the Cat has new playmates here, and they are learning one another’s habits bit by bit.  I am not sure if Squirrel had ever seen a dog in real life, but Jake the Dog has been patient and gentle with her.  We all hope that their galloping games of tag will someday evolve into naps together on Jake’s big couch, but for now, we are happy with the mutual playfulness.  Tommy the Cat isn’t so sure about her new “sister”, but she has learned to assert her power in the household pet dynamic: she is the boss, applesauce!

School goes on for me…and on…and on…but I’m taking a light class load and really enjoying every minute.  I’d expected to graduate in May, but that date has moved a little further into the future.  Missed classes have been a problem, with one doctor or another poking and prodding.  Maintaining my GPA has been challenging, but so far, so good.  Fortunately, my broken nose is almost healed for Christmas, and it seems to be in a nice symmetrical shape!  Graduation is still a light at the end of my tunnel, and I look forward to where my degree takes me, whether it be a new career or further education to get that now-less-elusive career.  My dream job is to work in family counseling, and I can see the steps along the way to that dream. I am blessed with so much support for my dreams!

Thundergirl’s third grade year has been a huge success for her, too.  Just last night, her teacher described her as “a friend to everyone” and “a joy to teach, a self-starting learner.”  Raising this small person to be kind and thoughtful is the greatest accomplishment I hope to achieve in life, and again, I can say, “So far, so good!”  She works so hard for her good grades and has just learned to truly love reading.  All it took was a move from Tinkerbell’s Fairly Adventures to the Guinness Book of World Records!  She left the book in her desk this week, Thanksgiving break, and her little heart is nearly broken over it.  She also recently made a big choice to let me trim her long, long hair into a chin-length bob, and she looks so adorable.  She is very happy with her decision and even happier to be able to brush her hair alone in the morning!  Seeing her personality evolve and grow fills me with so much joy.  She also loves to teach herself to play songs on the piano and recorder by ear and to take walks in the neighborhood with Geoff and Jake the Dog.  Her baton-twirling skills have also exploded since starting baton lessons in September, and anything and everything gets twirled, including her recorder!

As we settle into this new version of life, we feel so grateful to be happy and safe and warm here in our new home.  Sitting here on the couch, listening to many many renditions of Heart and Soul, finishing the last bit of our first Holiday Letter, with Geoff away at his daughters’ parent-teacher conferences and those daughters on a plane to Florida for Thanksgiving with grandparents–have fun at the beach, we miss you already!–I feel like life couldn’t get much better.

We wish you a healthy and happy Hanukkah, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Yule!

The Witches formerly of the Yellow Cottage and now of  The Charming Wreck

 

 

 

Okay, that wasn’t so bad.  I read a few online holiday letters to get a feel for formatting.  Exclamation points everywhere!  Everywhere!  And wow, we don’t hold back about medical conditions.

I found myself grasping for ways to explain some major life events without being morbid but without candy-coating, and I wish I felt entitled to brag about how well my step-daughter is doing, and what a wonderful person she is, and how happy I am so see her grow and evolve into herself.  I can’t take much credit for that, so I left it out.  She lives with her mother and her father now, and they must be doing things very right.

I also suppressed the urge to crow about Geoff’s girls, amazing as they are in their own ways.  Again, those sentences were edited out because I don’t feel like I have bragging rights just yet.

This time of transitions will come to an end.  Next year, I might send out a real holiday letter that includes absolutely everyone.  Until then, I’ll just watch them all bloom closeby, and continue to take partial credit for this one small person’s loveliness.  That’s the thing about transitional periods: they end, and evolve into other things.  Next year, I might believe every sparkly thing I might write, Christmas-candy-coated things to make people laugh and smile and feel happy for us all.  And maybe a little jealous because those awesome things aren’t candy fluff, but real as real can be.

Give me time.  We’re busy transitioning, joyfully and gratefully and in our own time.

BETTER NOW

Because of an ugly incident at the cottage, we have been swept into a new version of life that might look like an old version, if you didn’t know better.

The room that would have been Thundergirl’s, had we not moved in a rush after I got pregnant, is now her room.  The sink in it still works, which makes taking care of the aquarium a breeze.  The bathroom plumbing needs less attention to function, but no one likes to shower when such a lovely bath is just at the foot of the stairs.

Before this house was my home a decade ago, I chose it from among a handful of “nicer” rentals.  I didn’t plan to live here, but I was helping my new boyfriend find a place to bring his kids.  He wanted fireplaces and kitchens with breakfast bars and hardwood floors and open floor plans and landscaping.  Kids don’t care about landscaping unless they’ve done the planting.  He toured this patchwork house, its Korean landlady pointing out its many lovely features–built-in china cabinet! bay window in dining room! enormous master bedroom! sun porch!–and led us quickly past the cracked plaster and the most tilted parts of the probably-once-gleaming hardwood floors.  I saw a house that could handle two small people with grace and confidence.  One more chip in the paint wouldn’t lose any deposits.

I remember saying afterward, “I like this one the best.  It’s the cheapest and biggest, and closest to their new school. They could have a tire swing.”

I don’t know why he signed the lease, so deep was his dislike for this house, but he could afford the rent here and the two mortgage payments on his other houses.  His estranged wife lived in one in Texas.  The other held non-paying renters also in Texas.  A third that I didn’t know about went into foreclosure in Louisiana.  Back then, I did not ask questions.  Later, I figured things out on my own and still did not ask questions, but some questions never found answers anyway, like why he signed the lease here.  Or why I moved in.  He never asked me to stay, but as months passed and his babysitter became unreliable, I started to keep a toothbrush here.  One day, we brought my cats and my clothes and my chair.  That was all I owned then, and an easel, and my books and bears.

I had not wanted to move from this house a decade ago, but another lease was signed for a house that looked like the kind of house the father of my baby had wanted in the first place.  So, I packed, because what else was there to do?  The new rental was big and fancy, but as hard as I looked, I couldn’t find that house’s sense of place.  Living there gave me a real room to decorate as a nursery, which I’d never dreamed of doing.  When I wanted to feel at home in that house, I sat in the green velvet rocking chair from Goodwill and imagined rocking my Thundergirl-to-be, and felt satisfied with the paint job I’d done, and the crib I’d assembled, and the curtains I’d hung, and waited.

How I came back to this place after a baby, four moves, a marriage and a failure is not complicated.  I happened to fall in love with a man who liked this house well enough after his own divorce to sign the lease.  I don’t know why this was the house he chose, but I could ask.  If he remembers, he will tell me.  I know why we are here together now.  He loves us so very much.

That’s important.  He tells me.

 

 

Some places, some houses, have character enough to make cracked plaster charming.  That big house had no voice. This house, now home again, has begun to whisper its memories.

Who drew the cross on the basement wall?  Why does one room stay so warm and another so cool?  How has this lovely glass light fixture gone unbroken through so many college-town tenants?

The thing about this house that feels right and good isn’t just it’s lovely, odd bones and its comfortably creaky doors and stubborn windows.  It is a capable place, big enough for growing people and not so big that anyone can hide away.  This house wants to be a home, to throw its occupants together at regular intervals and still offer them little retreats with interesting views.

Here.  I am here now, one daughter’s whole lifetime in progress later.  This is still a fine house, two other renters and a few upgrades and a few new cracks and a new owner into the future.  The splintery floors are carpeted and the three different wallpapers in the kitchen got a coat of glossy paint.  No one has bothered to paint the cupboard that I didn’t get to before moving out, but I recommend Kilz gloss enamel with great confidence.  Not a chip since I painted it over the old brown mismatched cabinets.  Maybe that last one will finally get its turn at white matchiness.

The life I lived here before seems like it was lived in another place, but I must have been here.  Polishing the mantel–in the bedroom, not the living room–felt familiar last week.  Dusting under the tub, the big beautiful pond of a tub, certainly felt familiar.  The steep climb up the stairs, and the necessary genuine grip on the handrail, came back to me instantly: muscle memory, duck on that step.   Yes, I’ve been here.

I’d never expected to live here when I first saw it, and certainly never expected to live here again.  We may have been chased from our cottage, but we’ve found home where we began.  This place I’ve pointed out to my small person her entire life, the house with the ruby-diamond window.  She has always known it, always wanted to see inside, see her unseen past, her origin story.

Now I can explain that history does not exist, but memories are as real as today.  The past hugs us close and we are its caretakers. If we listen closely enough, even a house will whisper stories of what we were then.

We know without a doubt what we are now.  We are loved.