Montpelier
After trying for decades to get it right, Mother and I finally pretty much aced it with this house. It suits our needs and tastes almost perfectly. There’s very little we’d do differently if we were to build another one. Everything important on one floor, with lots of room to expand, in case the next owner has a large family. Even the ramp, which I installed 10 years ago for the convenience of our aging dog, is now just the thing for this old dog and Mother’s wheelchair.
Trouble is, Mother hasn’t been here for over a year now. I see her twice, most days, at the nursing facility, and read novels to her during my visits; but the bulk of my time is spent rattling around in here like a dried pea in a tin can. It causes some depression, I suppose, but my family were of German stock, and we expect to be depressed. If we feel happy, we get nervous.
No, the big thing is the lack of stimulation. I’ve mentioned many times before this that the human spirit needs conflict to stay sharp; and when Mother’s here, we’re both sharp as tacks. There’s almost nothing we can’t disagree about, which we take as a positive feature of our coexistence. It must work. If we last another four months, it’ll have been 57 years we’ve been at it.
Here’s what I mean by lack of stimulation. I like to be afoot by 6:30 in the morning, brewing coffee, taking the day’s pills, checking the email, starting breakfast. The alarm goes off — or gets turned off when I hear it begin to clear its throat — at 6:15. Often I lie still afterward, deep in drowsy contemplation of the opportunities, challenges and problems just ahead. If Mother were here, she’d pipe up, after about three minutes, with “Aren’t you getting up?”
“Yup,” I answer, with just a touch of irritation in my voice. And then, as if it were a slight imposition, “You want your coffee in here?” That may seem like a stupid thing to miss, but I do. That interaction has effected two things: gotten me out of bed and started the coffee betimes.
It’s not as if there’s nothing to do around here. The heating unit in the bathroom ceiling has died again, so I’ve got to replace that. There are a few windfall spruces here and there outside that need to be limbed and cut up, as well as a pile of white ash to be cut, split and trucked into the cellar. The carpets have to be rolled up, taken to the cleaners, and stored before Mother comes home, as we hope she soon will be. Her wheelchair doesn’t like carpet edges, and if she’s using a walker, they’re downright dangerous.
I’ve got to wrestle my clapboard-painting rig out of the barn attic, set it up, and paint enough clapboards to cover the west side of the barn, which at the moment is showing an unsightly plywood rear to the neighbors. We finally have a new puppy — a rescue from Texas — coming in about a week, so I’ve got to kid-proof the house indoors and set up a run for her out back. She’ll introduce a whole new dimension to life around here — I hope.
Just listing all these items somehow creates the illusion of responsibility, when in fact none of them has been done yet. It’s a peaceful existence, interrupted only occasionally by foreign nationals trying to sell me solar panels, security systems or Life Alert buttons. Rather like the shadows on Plato’s cave wall, imitating reality.
Speaking of which, I’ve kept up a membership in a fitness club, to which I can repair at almost any waking hour to work out on treadmills, stair climbers, elliptical trainers, swimming pool and Nautilus circuits. After a winter of admittedly sporadic attendance, I’ve judged myself reasonably fit for the summer season of outdoor activities. That has been a mistake.
Montpelier is blessed with a magnificent forested park — Hubbard Park — that rises steeply from the river in the center of town about 300 feet to a hilltop crowned by a 100-year-old stone tower. It’s a favorite local hiking, running and dog-walking getaway. I’ve come here for some time to do fitness walks on the hilly trails, with a handful of dog treats in my left pants pocket. I love it when one of my canine acquaintances recognizes me from afar, perks his ears, says, “Here comes the old guy with the cane and the pocketful of biscuits!” comes rushing up, and sits expectantly while I fish out a treat. I’ve found that dogs’ personalities, simpler and naturally more loving than ours, almost always mirror those of their owners.
The cold weather seems to have at last gone grumbling out over the Labrador Sea. After lunch today I contemplated the alternative of a walk in the park instead of a session in the gym watching CNN while the machine put me through a simulated cross-country course. I thought about it some more; apathy competed with torpor, indolence and procrastination. Whenever that happens, I remember Gen. Lewis Armistead encouraging the soldier, paralyzed and huddling behind a fence during Pickett’s Charge: “Think how you’ll feel tomorrow, son.” So off I went, parked in my usual spot at the foot of the hill, loaded up with biscuits, and limped off up the trail.
Whoa! There had obviously been a geological cataclysm at the park during the winter; the trail was much steeper and longer than it had been last fall. Subsurface volcanic activity, no doubt. It forced me to reflect, as that fantasy faded, on the difference between simulated activity, which had encouraged me to believe I was really getting somewhere, and the real thing, which involves hauling over 200 octogenarian pounds up a long, steep trail. That puppy can’t get here soon enough; and if Mother can come home, too, then tomorrow (as the late Jim Croce sang) is gonna be a brighter day.
Willem Lange can be reached at willem.lange@comcast.net.
