I’ve lived in SF long enough to forget how it feels to walk out of a warm house and right into a 5:30 AM freezing cold Michigan morning. My current home City by the Bay has its weather quirks but freezing your nose blue in a bitter November is not one of them. Michigan is reminding me what Winter feels like, and what it does to your nose on mornings such as this one.
I’m now warmly settled on our California Zephyr train ride back west, and all body parts are unfrozen and returned to their natural color, so I can find room in my heart and mind to write about this mornings sharp wake up call.
Since Peter and I decided to buy the big beautiful old house next door to his parents in Willis, Michigan, the sudden invasion of genuine Winter is …..well… invasive! I gave away my last pair of snow boots 15 years ago when we moved to California and rejoiced in
doing so .
I have now ordered new ones and they are pink. They sit in my spacious Michigan closet, with matching thick socks, a pink woven hat and a pair of matching gloves, plus long pink scarf….i almost look forward to wearing all that once we encounter a Michigan snowfall on our next visit.
We don’t actually fully move there until Spring of next year.
Meanwhile we’ll be making regular visits to get the four bedroom five bath house in proper order. Peter is taking lessons in how to judge a healthy sump pump from a used up one, and what to do when your soffits get hit by wayward pine branches.
I am taking lessons in not screaming with terror at the thought of another Winter morning bruising my aged face with biting cold.
Seriously though, we are pretty excited about this Michigan house.
It’s so big, and the price was so very right, it seems BESHERT (which is Yiddish for FATE)…..plus, as it’s right across a lovely meadow from Peters parents place, we will have constant warmth from people we both truly love, as well as as many hugs and smooches as are proper….we love his people.
And I love Peter so much, after 25 years of being together, that it makes me happy to make him happy, and this house adventure makes him happy!
It also makes me happy to open up my blessedly long life to yet another invigorating new experience….a new escapade….a revisiting of my long ago memories of my delightful months spent in midwestern summer stock theaters surrounded by flat farmland that looks very much like the acres that
surround this new house.
And there are cows.
Cows with moist large brown eyes that seem to understand everything…….and extremely gentle folk….and cheaper gas prices…hell , cheaper everything! And, as long as I can find a good hair and nail salon, and a great writing group or two, I will gladly brave the chill of forgotten winters to make appointments with all!
Also, nearby Ann Arbor contains one of the best universities in America, and I adore college towns…..I’m a graduate of a couple of them myself, both also quite cold in the winter…..but I remember the blaze of the campus trees in Fall, and I have a feeling I may even begin to write poetry again.
So……let the invasion of fresh experience – hot or cold- begin.
I’m ready for it.