We, Rebecca and I, have been living on Waschke Road nearly two months now. Albert and Victoria, our dogs, are used to being back on the road in a new house with a larger yard, but I can’t say that we are settled in.
This house is much smaller than our previous two houses, has many minor and not so minor things that need repair, replacement, or change to suit us. I begin each day with a task list that grows longer as the day goes on. I think that some morning, I’ll wake up and the list will be empty, but, somehow, I know that day will not come.
The decision to move back was hard. We loved the Ferndale house and the Gardiner Terrace neighborhood. The kitchen and the layout of the house is as perfect as I could imagine. I’ve never taken much interest in local politics, but I enjoyed learning about Ferndale city government and began to think that I might be able to help a growing city of wonderful people that seemed to need lessons on how to grow. A city that builds sleek new streets but fails to maintain the old, continually playing catchup on infrastructure, and generally fumbling its value proposition might benefit from my experience with corporate infighting and governance.
But I put those thoughts behind us when Rebecca’s surgeon recommended a fourth back surgery as soon as the covid-19 lockdown was lifted.
After your fourth trip to the rodeo, you begin to plan for your next visit. The Ferndale house with two stories and spacious layout would not work for us any longer. We thought about installing a chair lift but adding another complex device to our lives was not an answer we liked. We already owned a house that is an easy walk from our children and grandchildren, single story, a ramp to the front door, with space for my office and Rebecca’s craft studio, and a panoramic view of Mount Baker’s glaciers and buttes presiding over fields that my father, grandfather, and now our son, have farmed for over a century. The tenants who were renting the house were ready to move on to purchasing their own house. The instant we finished thinking it through, the decision was obvious.
So here we are. Albert, the border collie, and I are back to walking up and down Waschke Road several times a day, waving to the neighbors, treading paths and looking at sights that I have tread on and looked at my entire life.
Feels good. Not what we expected a few years ago, but we had soup made from kale grown by our farmer son and daughter-in-law last night. Feels good.