29 January: reading and reflecting

Sunday, 29 January 2023

Skooter basked in the sunshine on the front steps…

…but when I went outside, filled with gardening enthusiasm, I immediately realized it was much too cold. The temperature the night before had gotten down to 22 degrees F, and the day was just above 30.

I finished The Salt Path and couldn’t wait to get an interlibrary loan of The Wild Silence, its sequel, so I checked the ebook out of the library even though I prefer paper books. Impatience won, and I read it all the rest of the day.

The passage below reminded me of how I have always wanted a weeping willow tree.

I don’t have one because I thought I did not have room or time to see it grow. However, recent thoughts about it led to reading that it grows about ten feet a year and matures in 30 years…so I might have time to see just enough growth to be beautiful but not enough to be too much for its space. I stopped reading long enough to order one from Forest Farm:

I will plant it far from the house to avoid plumbing problems.

The paragraph below spoke to me of why, being a gardener at heart, I decided at age 22 that I must buy a house, and I took on a mortgage at age 24. At any place I rented that had any yard attached, I made a little garden and was always afraid of losing it to the property owner.

I bought my Seattle house in 1979, an option not available to most mid twenties people now because the price of real estate is so high. At the time, my friends were appalled that I was paying a $400 a month mortgage, always with the fear of losing the house, because that was so much money compared to my rent, which had been $125. (In a few years, times changed and my friends were renting at almost the same amount as my mortgage.)

After mortgage, utilities, property tax and insurance, I had $16 a week left for food and entertainment. I worked (self employed, cleaning houses, which was fairly lucrative even then) six to seven days a week, cleaning a couple of offices and the home of a busy flight attendant on the weekends. I worked even when sick with colds and fever, and I now hope that I disinfected everything so that I didn’t leave germs for my clients. I didn’t even think about that at the time, as I was so desperate to make the money. Of course, I had no medical insurance.

For several years, until I no longer lived alone, I felt like my whole life was about paying the mortgage, while my renting friends traveled the world. I think it was worth it: I couldn’t have become a jobbing gardener in a seasonal business 20 years later if I’d had rent or a mortgage to pay.

(Left, cleaning in 1979. Below, cleaning in 1987; by then I had housemates and my financial situation was much better. I adored the house below, whose owner made gorgeous tablescapes of natural materials. The most beautiful home interior that I ever knew. The nice client took the photo, but I have forgotten her name.)

When I moved away, a couple of my clients wept and one said ruefully, “It’s going to be a long trip to come clean my house every other week.”

my beloved Seattle home; I still have some seller’s remorse.

You can see more pictures of it and its long history here.

Now, when I have been mortgage-free for decades and could afford to travel, I would rather stay in my garden and keep a tiny carbon footprint in the world. Although, if it were easy to emigrate (with cats and many books…and my plants!), I would love to move our whole household to Cornwall or Scotland.

Yesterday a new batch of books arrived at the library. I am set for rainy weather.

If you have made it this far, you can thank or blame Allan’s gift of a new MacBook for today’s easily typed wordiness.