Homecoming

            Our homecoming was joyful, but not without some apprehension. We parked in the driveway to save us a few steps hauling all of our stuff to the front door, and we saw that the folks who had plowed our driveway in the winter had plowed our gravel – a lot of it – into the garden. I imagined what it would take to get it out from its tangles in leaves and mulch, especially since the garden featured some large sculptural rocks.

 

            And then all that stuff in the car to deal with! We both carried boxes and bags in from the car, and Kim was in charge of unpacking and putting things away, as I didn’t remember where anything went, and she didn’t want to be ordering me around. I did put a few of my things away – clothes that Kim would re-hang properly and drawers for my toiletries (not my favorite word) that Kim would re-organize for me.

 

            Mainly I retreated to the basement, where I intended to reactivate our internet and television service. Fortunately, I had called Spectrum to end our vacation hold status. But unfortunately, I had called for that reactivation to begin the day after we returned, so I had to call them back. The Spectrum guy was patient with me and said it should be on within the hour, but it might take a day. It was an hour.

 

            This was only a partial solution, as I still needed to know how to use our two remotes (one came with the television, the other from Spectrum) to watch regular television and to stream Netflix, Prime, and Hulu. I was able to do the streaming, and I did manage to stumble upon the ABC network, but I’m not sure how. We do like to watch Sunday morning programs on CBS. I’m writing this on Saturday – will let you know how it goes.

 

            My next challenge was to hook up more electronics so we could tell Alexa what music we wanted to listen to. I hoped plugging it in would do the job, but Alexa told me she was having trouble locating my internet service. After a bit of searching online, I learned that what I needed to do was to hold down one of the two buttons on top for 15 seconds, and then a yellow light would go on, and a few seconds later I would be good to go. It worked! I gave myself a big pat on the back. Kim was too busy opening and emptying boxes to give me a pat until I asked for one later.

 

            So, for me, the initial joyfulness was mixed with an awareness of all the work that we had to do – not just unpacking and then finding things we hid from people who might be examining our house, and finding things whose regular location we had forgotten, and setting up electronics, but also in our daily routine of housekeeping and yardwork. We were planning a major grocery shopping trip – about an hour away. We needed to get new bird feeders as we had sold ours in a garage sale, thinking we were going to sell the house and move away. We needed a new leaf-chopper to replace the one we had sold, so we could recycle our leaves as mulch. 

 

            On top of all of this was and is the Spring Cleanup of our property – all the weeds in the gardens and the leaves covering gardens and bushes. And the beach needed maintenance – sticks and some big logs. In the few days we have been back we have put in maybe ten hours dealing with the driveway gravel in the gardens.

 

            But then, after a three-day flurry of activity, we reawakened to why we love this place. Aside from having a kitchen that works well, and (thanks to me) a television that works well, we sat on our warm porch and watched the birds discover our new feeder. We have seen twenty species as I write this. And we sat at breakfast, watching the sunrise and seeing a blur that might have been an owl whiz by our dining room window. And while I was working on the garden gravel, I heard a pileated woodpecker hammering high in a large dead tree, and I heard an eagle overhead. We saw the brilliant blues of Torch Lake, and at night the full moon’s reflection on the still waters. And I heard the call of a distant early-morning loon.

 

            And we thought – this is not Atlanta. We are seeing and hearing birds at breakfast, not motorcycles and fire engines. Our windows show lake and birds – this morning a male turkey strutting his stuff for three females – not Atlanta’s traffic zooming by, or stopped in a jam. We love it here. Yes, we are going to need some help – people our age do. We are going to try out some people next week.

 

            Yes, there is a lot that we miss in Atlanta – mainly being close to family, but also our very cool loft space and the friendships that we were starting to build. We miss the great vibe of the Stacks and Cabbagetown – artists, musicians, writers, filmmakers, etc. (in addition to the occasional vandals who climb the fence to get in). And we miss Atlanta’s warm weather in April, especially after coming home to a bit of snow and thin ice on the lake. And we do feel a bit isolated here, though it’s an easy one-mile drive to our local market, with some speeders flying by, but the roads are open. We miss having good restaurants within walking distance, but we have the Torch Lake Café a mile away, an OK restaurant that will be open all week in a few days.

 

            But every day we are here we are reminded, despite all the work, how much we love this place. By “this place” I mean the Bark House – its beauty and livability (thank you, Kim), and our place on the shore of Torch Lake – the sunrise, the birds, the deer (even though they ate a lot of flowers this winter), and Michigan itself – hard to love a complex state, but still – it’s our home.

 

            Tomorrow we look at a condo for sale in Traverse City. It’s located in the old mental institution where we lived while building the Bark House. The plan, at least for now, is to rent it out in the summer and live there the rest of the year – close to shopping and the hospital and a short walk to restaurants in the Commons (as it’s called). It’s not big enough for full-time living. We’ll see how it goes.