I’ve been thinking of my home this
morning, and of all the changes it has been through since I have owned this
property. I moved to Florida in September 1981. I moved here to this address in
January of 1982, and mostly, this is where I have lived. When Steve and I
married in 1984 we moved out briefly in 1985. We spent a 2-year period between
a new little house up town (we, neither of us, were town people), and then in a
trailer his uncle owned. We were on an acre or so, and there were berry farms
surrounding us. We bought this place; 2 ¼ acres and an old falling down house
from his dad in 1987, and it is where I have lived ever since. The new house (this
house; now nearly 30 years old) was finished in February 1997, and I became the
sole owner sometime around 2000. That is a different story for another day.
The neighbors were never close at
hand; close enough but we are not on top of each other in this neighborhood. The
neighbors to the right had been here longer than me. Their “new” house was built
in the late 80s. They sold out a few years ago; too much property to care for as
they aged. Across the road, those neighbors died two years apart, after living
there longer than I. She died first of brain cancer, and he followed of the
same disease in December 2024. To the left, on a small ¼ acre lot, the neighbor
who had been here the longest died, around the same time Gracie and Joe sold
their place. Now the neighborhood looks forlorn and sort of neglected; my yard
included. My house is beautiful (ignoring the gutter which was bent and dented
from Hurricanes Milton/Helene, when several old heavy oaks twisted and one fell
on the house; a bent gutter is better than a punctured roof!). Because the sun
now gets to the underbrush it has grown into a tangled mess that I need to get taken
care of; eventually. So for now I live in a beautiful home surrounded by a lot
of Florida nature.
Lat night I walked out into the yard
around midnight. I wanted to move my car off the grass onto the concrete pad
for today’s lawn service visit. It was still; a dark and heavy night. The new
moon is Sunday, and the crescent moon had not yet risen; or, if it had, it was
shaded by cloud cover. The Big Dipper hung in its summer spot over the Simpson’s
house across the road. It helps me locate myself on the map, knowing where the
Big Dipper sits in the summer sky. Growing up at the lake, the dipper hung over
the lake on summer evenings; aligning me slightly to the (south)west, toward
Canada and the St. Lawrence. Even now, all these years later, I know where I am
based on the position of the Big Dipper. It provides the smallest comfort and
sense of wellbeing. The night was so dark and still, and yet the darkness felt
comforting in a strange way. It is no secret that I do not like Florida. I don’t
like the weather, the politics, the traffic – none of it. Still, there are moments of clarity and peace,
even living in a place I do not like. I know I will eventually move, although I
go around in my thoughts about where it is I want to be. Last night I had one
of those comfortable, contented feelings; surrounded by darkness, placing the
Big Dipper in the night sky, the whole night sort of holding it’s breath for the
next big exhale. For that moment in time, I felt the peace I used to feel in
the night’s of my teenage years, of the nights looking out my bedroom window
waiting for life to begin; nights looking out of my dorm room wondering where
my life would take me. I felt that sense of wonder and awe last night as I
looked at the night sky. I am not young anymore, but I am also not old and at
the end of my life. There is always a reason to hope, to wonder, to pray, and
to dream. Last night under the stars I remembered that, and it filled me with
peace.
