No Matter Where You Go -- There You Are

One year ago today, we opened the door to our new house, uncrated the cat after 10 hours traversing the Washington/Boston corridor, inflated two air mattresses and went to sleep for the first time in Swampscott.  Through this blog, I have tried to share some of the high points and impressions with you in 21 posts over the last twelve months.  What follows is  my 22nd and final entry.  It is mostly a not very elegant way for me to share with you some photos I’ve taken that didn’t fit into previous posts.  I have enjoyed preparing these posts for you, but I sense that the novelty is wearing off among my loyal readers, and I don’t wish to overstay my welcome.  I will send abbreviated updates through regular FB comments from this point forward, and Trudi has her own FB page now through which to post her news, which she didn’t have when I began the blog.  

Several themes have characterized our first year here.  

First has been the constant drumbeat of getting this new (old) house into shape…. Installing new roof shingles and gutters, evicting squirrels from the eaves, swapping out the electric range for a gas model, replacing rotting cedar shakes,  rewiring to come up to code, patching the wobbly fieldstone foundation, replacing a WWI era sump pump, adding cupboard space in the kitchen and dining room and more.

Steve replacing rotten shakes

  

New corner cupboard

 

We have gotten pretty far through the initial punch list, and the house feels more like our home now than it did a year ago.  But we still have a couple of major projects for year two and beyond.

A second strand is the influence of the ocean that is woven into our daily lives.  Living as we do a five minute walk from Massachusetts Bay, we are aware of the Atlantic as a palpable presence all about us.  I shared some images of the New Years Day polar bear swim and the ravages of last fall’s hurricane in  previous posts.  This summer has introduced us to other local customs and activities.

A minister from the local Episcopal church participates in this season’s Blessing of the Fleet.

The Unitarian Universalist church we attend holds an annual Sunday service on the town beach.  Here the choir is rehearsing the morning's anthem “Take Me to the Water”.

A duct tape regatta in Swampscott harbor with proceeds going to an international charity is another water-related annual happening.

 Local churches echo the oceanic theme with Marblehead’s Our Lady Star of the Sea Parish and Gloucester’s Our Lady of Good Voyage steeple statue preserved in the Cape Ann Museum where Trudi is in training to be a docent along with a large collection of seascapes by Fitz Henry Lane and a room-sized model of the town in its heyday as a fish processing center.

Seaside-related artistic expression  has also included the  9^th Annual Revere Beach National Sand Sculpting Festival that we attended last week with Adella.

 

Finally,  we have found the need to preserve ties with old friends to be a strong one.  This is not  surprising after 36 years in Arlington.  We have returned to Arlington (I almost typed “home”) several times over the last year to attend events and spend time with Barbara and Tom Schelstrate, and are grateful for their generous hospitality.  

We drove out for a weekend on Cape Cod, largely so we could attend services at Rev. Mary Ganz’s new UU congregation in Brewster.  It was terrific to see her looking well and happy.  Trudi and I both do miss the poetry and thoughtfulness of her sermons.

We just returned from the Arlington UU Church Choir trip to Ireland and Wales.  It was great to sing outside the US and to see interesting places and sample lots of Irish whiskey, but the best part was to be back together with folks we have known and been friends with for years.  

The choir on the pier in Aberystwyth Ireland

Confucius is reported to have said “no matter where you go – there you are”.  As I look back on the motivations that led us to leave Northern Virginia for good, it strikes me that I may have been seeking a new start in my very late middle age, a way to keep the old routines built up over the decades from obscuring the richness that day-to-day life has to offer.   But as Confucius cautions, it is the same me, no matter if I live above or below the Mason/Dixon Line.  On the other hand, when granddaughter Adella takes my hand at the New England Aquarium and leads me to an exciting new fish she has just spotted, I am definitely Grampa Jim in a way I wouldn’t be if I lived 500 miles away from her.  May the wind always be at your back and thanks for reading.