Home. Such a small word to harbor such heartfelt meaning.
Home, to familiar sniffs, to cheerful waiters offering endless cups of real coffee, home to everything I'd missed so keenly, home to Joe, to my life.
Funny -- it's taking more time than I thought it would, to feel fully -- here -- in Traverse City. A good part of me is still in Herefordshire, in Bryn Garth cottage's lovely, airy, window-lined sunroom, gazing down on Golden Valley's incomparable beauty amid clean, gossamer-white curtains blowing in the sweet spring breeze.
Perhaps it's taking so long to let go because I had just 15 precious minutes to savor things, there. At 2:45 p.m., the last workman departed. The sun shone; the cottage gleamed because the cleaners had returned to pounce on lingering dust that morning (which would continue to settle over the next few months). I'd wandered through the rooms memorizing the lines, the lightness of it all, the sense of completion. The cottage preened, reborn. It had my stamp, and didn't mind. Nothing fought. Colors married with the natural light; books beckoned. The comfy library's upholstered chairs invited, rugs flopped happily on floors and my mother's beautifully restored desk (pummeled by torrents of water for two weeks in December) rested in its place. How enormously satisfying.
A fat, tiny, orange-breasted robin peered in the window, and velvet-furred rabbits played on the newly mown lawn. I sat on the window seat marveling at this metamorphosis -- from "shoulda plowed it under," to perfect.
Well, nearly. The guest bedroom was still unfinished; no worries -- another two days would put it right. But now, with pictures and curtains hung, I hugged myself, and solemnly pronounced it -- Done.
At 3 p.m., a car door slammed; my dear, longtime English friend had arrived to take me away. Bounding up the stone stairs she blew into the house, exclaiming at the order. We high-fived, I offed the lights, locked the door and we were gone, leaving the cottage bewildered. Unexpectedly, I felt a searing wrench, then tears. How could I leave? This was abandonment!
"Wait! Take me back!" I wanted to scream. But on we motored to Newport's train connection. (Hereford was celebrating Mayfair, a huge, annual 700-year-old festival -- ONLY an Act of Parliament can abolish -- making it impossible to use THAT train station.) Gaynor chattered cheerfully about positive things. "Relax," she said; "It'll be fine ..."
Abruptly Joe thumped down the stairs into Sunnybank's warm, suitcase-messy kitchen, wreathed in grins, arms open, shirttails out, shoeless feet slapping the pine floor. I leaped up, and into those welcoming arms. This is why I came back.
He said, straight away, knowing me so well, "We'll go back there regularly, you know. We can have feet in both worlds ... Bryn Garth will be fine; good people are looking after it."
The phone rang; my children shouted a welcome. Best friends Les and Sarah grilled Delmonico steaks, and I inhaled her incredibly good cookies. Lovely music filled the house (except for the painter's offerings, there'd been none -- no TV, or paper, either -- for four months). The neighbor cat wound round the porch banister, fat with kittens; my garden gleamed, attentively cleaned by my friend, Adam, of Timeless Gardens.
I looked at bright tulips, the fountains, the promise of it all, and a great welling of eagerness for the life I'd left so abruptly, emerged. Rolling my eyes I snatched away the silly silk Christmas poinsettias from the porch wall vases, and swept the front walk with a Broom.
With an audible SNAP, I'd disengaged from "over there," and was truly Home.
Dee Blair's Sunnybank Gardens are at 325 Sixth St. in Traverse City. Visit her Web site, www.deeblair.com for more information.
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