Looking ahead

Lew and I are looking into the future. As you may know, I have sold my house and purchased a condominium next door to my father’s in Port Ludlow. I won’t move there for a few years however, using it as a weekend/holiday retreat (doesn’t that sound posh?) because when all the numbers were written on paper, I just couldn’t justify financially quitting my job so near retirement. So I rescinded my resignation and have brought my thinking around to a more positive place after a sense of mourning at clipping my wings again. It helps greatly that the clipping is my decision and even more greatly that I have a new project ahead with the condo.
 
Rose has accepted a job in Boston and will move in the next few months so it’s Lew and me again. We don’t have to leave the house until the end of September, which gives me a long time to find a little place closer to work than Port Ludlow to call “home”. Lew is feeling a great deal of arthritis I believe as he spends a large portion of the day following me with his eyes instead of his muddy feet. I know he hasn’t gone off me because if I leave a room he will raise his head to watch me and if I peek around the corner his eyes are still focused on the horizon I disappeared around. He’s taking 2 anti-inflammatory medications plus glucosamine but I’m not sure if they are helping or if he would be much worse off without them. There are still times when he will bounce in front of the door in anticipation but far fewer and farther between. So I am spending lots of time on the floor. It’s not bad, good for my back, though I really must do a more thorough job with the vacuum!
 
The man who has purchased my house has said I may take anything with me that I wish. He is going to raze the place and most likely take out many, if not all of my 4 huge Western Red Cedars that I have always felt were loyal protectors of my little family. My daughters climbed them, swung on them and I am sick that this is how I will repay them for their kindness. I have thanked these trees after storms, smiled at them daily when I come and go and smelled with gratitude the softening duff that they provide as mulch over my garden and walkways. Each spring, I lazily rake it into little piles and return it from whence it rained in a futile effort to neaten the place but I really never mind finding that more has replaced it, it’s good to be out in the cool damp, my favorite weather. I am moving to the land in which this tree reigns supreme so I will always have their cousins to remind me to give thanks. But still, it’s not quite the same, is it? I am so grateful for the history we have shared.
 
I was prompted to take some flower petals to press from a shrub that my mother loved. She would come and cut branches each year and delight as they opened in her world from mine. Other things I am going to photograph, common views that I found happy or comforting. And I believe I am going to take my kitchen cabinets, as they are pale yellow and glass fronted and I love them. They have their scuffs and chips but don’t we all? 
 
This letting go stuff is challenging and brings continually a realization that ultimately, at death, I will have to let go of everything physical. So this step in my life is practice!