How do people who own cottages do it?
I’m amazed by them.
I have been winterizing the RV and I am reminded again why I never liked the temporary summer residence idea!
My parents had a summer place near The Dells. Actually it was my dad’s place — he was the one who loved going there; he was the one who wanted to go there. For 20 years they maintained that place — mom tolerating it and sort-of-enjoying it for a weekend or two each year. Dad regularly went out there just for some peace and quiet — meaning no TV, (not meaning getting away from mom) and time to sit quietly by his fire watching for deer and other critters while he caught up on a pile of reading that he brought along each trip.
But come the end of the season there was that packing up and winterizing that had to be done.
When dad passed we got rid of the place at the Dells in short order!
Now we own an RV, and as soon as our daughter’s house gets sold so they can buy ours we’ll be gone full time RV’ing. But in the meantime…. In the meantime I’m back to winterizing!
It’s a strange feeling — this sensation of being between lives. Not fitting into any life because one’s “stuff” is spread all over several places. Dad’s solution, and I suspect the solution of many summer-getaway owners is to have multiple versions of your stuff — if you remember the old monologues of George Carlin about suitcases and “versions of your stuff” you’re about in my generation. But it’s true — we craft various “versions” of who we are, some we carry along with us, some we save for special occasions like vacations, still others come out only ceremoniously. But why do we do that?
In our case, Peggy and mine, we are transitioning to a new life. We are consciously downsizing a sprawling lifestyle for something more compact and manageable. And we are temporarily stuck between two places.
But many people do this for decades; they have their city life and their summer, country life — they travel weekly from city to country often driving several hundred miles a week just for that escape of being out of the city, and away from their weekday life?
In my youth I never thought much about “houses.” I was more of a Milwaukeean than someone who lived at a particular address. I didn’t take great pride in the house I lived in, but I took a lot of pride in liviing in this city, and I enjoyed all the niceties and conveniences it offered. Walks along the lake, theater, culture — these were the reasons I lived and worked in Milwaukee.
6 yrs ago when we bought the school house I understood for the first time how or why some people find contentment in their “house.” The schoolhouse filled a void I’d never known before. I didn’t feel as if I needed to “go” anywhere. Almost to the point of distraction. I was content to work in the school, live in the school, there were weeks when I never left the building — I didnt’ need to, didn’t want to, didn’t have to. We’d do our grocery shopping over the weekend and I could be “in” until the following weekend. I was quite happy. Models came to the studio, I shot them, they left — I was still there. Peggy kept telling me to get out of the house and ENJOY — but I WAS enjoying life — I was focussed on my art, I enjoyed cooking for a diversion, and of course I had the woman I loved there with me when she wasn’t wasn’t working. My “world” was complete — in the sense that I needed nothing more.
But I have known a lot of people who lived a life they hated because of their job, or because it was where their spouse wanted to live, or where they needed to live so the kids could go to the right school, or a thousand other reasons. For them, the weekends were their only reason for living. They worked between 23% and 56% of their lives, slept for 25% of their lives, and for 35% of their lives, those precious 60 hours between 5 p.m. on Friday and 5 a.m. on Monday morning they were free to be themselves.
I admit, I never understood that life. I have been fortunate in being able to enjoy most of the jobs I’ve had. I have a spouse I truly love and whom I have been waiting 42 years to be able to spend this much time with: day in and and day out — I love it. And while we may not have lived in our ideal place, we HAVE always lived in places we liked — and when we no longer liked living there we moved. I’ve never felt trapped — a sentiment I seem to see and hear around me a lot.
The versions of our “stuff” with which we choose to live in our lives and on the weekends at our weekend getaways are often quite different. One style of interior design in our home, and often quite another at the cottage, or trailer, or wherever we flee to on the weekend. We duplicate so much: wardrobes, and appliances, and bedding, and…. well, you know the drill.
But when you are downsizing you don’t WANT to be duplicating things. You are wanting to get rid of them. So when we recently took the RV out for a test drive and returned home to put it in storage for the winter, or until we are ready to go fulltime we have been faced with this dilemma about what do we take, what do we leave, what is the minimum we need to live comfortably. But the challenge, and it is a challenge, is after you have moved those things from the house to the RV but you are still living at home — do you take it back OUT of your new traveling home to make living more comfortable, or do you just leave it there and do without.
All of which involves boxes and boxes and trudging up and down the stairs a seemingly endless number of times.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I understand housekeeping — but I have never been keen on senseless repetition. The idea of packing up the car every weekend for that getaway trip seems to me to be insane; but if you crave getting away it’s a small price to pay. It’s all about priorities, isn’t it! It’s a strange and wonderful world, with room in it for all sorts of people, and all sorts of life styles. Some choose lives that are very different from mine; and they are free to do so. I choose a different life style, and I too am free.
So, this fall, I winterize, therefore I am. I winterize in the hopes that by spring, or next summer all the details of the houses will have been sorted out, our family will have moved over here, and we will be moving out. For this year I have drained out my water, I have poured in my antifreeze, I have disconnected batteries and saved my “juice” (as it were) for a warmer season. I’m ready ( as if I am EVER ready) for winter.
It’s OK. A small price to pay for the future we want. And in the meantime we have the joy of anticipation. It is good to be ready and waiting.
