Jenifer’s Shelter Island Journal: There’s no place like homes

Forty-two years ago, when I found myself unaccountably wanting to move out to my childhood summers’ island, my mother was unaccountably willing to stake me to a down payment on a house. I found one. 

There wasn’t much competition in my “fixer-upper” budget — three as I remember — and all quite … challenging. But this one, an old rangy, natural-shingled farmhouse with a certain dignity in spite of the inadvertent abuse its interior had suffered, appealed to me, sitting as it did, like a faithful old dog, in the middle of an acre’s-worth of corner in one of the busiest sections of the Island. 

In the months leading up to the closing, like a mail order bride, I’d show pictures of my intended to my friends in Montclair. I kind of fell in love with it, until the papers were signed and my fate was sealed, and I learned the meaning of buyer’s remorse.

I don’t plan to describe our entire 42-year relationship in 800 words. Suffice it to say that there’s was no honeymoon period. However, it’s turned out that for a woman twice divorced and once widowed, this love-hate-love relationship with an old house is the closest I’ve ever come to a long-term marriage.

Decades ago, when I first started really falling in love, the changes “we” made were wonderful, but, even way before I got old, I always thought this sturdy, serious house needed … what? An arm? A leg? A wing, maybe, to soften its straight and narrow rigidity.

I daydreamed about it, visualized it when I passed back and forth on my walks, could see its roof line coming directly off my study, musing about it right into, surprise!, my old age.

I’ve written more than once about figuring out how to put an ADU (Acccesory Dwelling Unit) on my property so that I could rent the main house (so much for love), so I could afford to spend my dotage on this beautiful, increasingly expensive island. 

You might’ve expected my first thought to be that much-dreamed-about “wing”, but somehow, that was a youthful dream. The lingo now was, “manufactured,” “modular,” “ADU pre-fab.” It took me over a year of research and frustration, and a gradual declension of my re-financed nest-egg, to find my way back to my old dream and re-purpose it for my new life as an old person.

I’d thought of my house as a “he” for 40 years until s/he had a baby (actually, androgyny’s very in nowadays, I hear), the result of combining my endlessly erased and re-drawn ideas, and my brother showing me a cute garage he’d just built for a customer. It’s much bigger in real life than it was on graph paper, but the beauty part is s/he’s an addition — separate yet still attached. Having my house and renting, too — ah, paradox!

But suddenly it seems we have people interested in actually renting, way before Baby is ready, but they’re renters, after all, and that’s good. Except at 77.5, I’m a virgin landlady and clueless what to do with renters. It’s a thousand times worse than prepping for my Christmas parties back in the day — nothing is ready!

I suppose they’ll want doorknobs on all the bedrooms, and I’ll never be able to explain the eccentricities of the hall shower. It’ll have to be fixed. Lots has to be fixed.  And cleaned!  Behind the refrigerator cleaned? Oh, Lord. People are coming to live in my house, where eventually I’ll be living, too, only slightly to the west.

I’m moving, but not moving. Other people will be living in my house–but so will I, so we’ll all need stuff, as in  sheets and pillowcases and towels and plates and glasses and bowls and pans, etc., etc.

How can I sort through 40 years of stuff? My physical therapist — early 40s maybe, but already a veteran at dealing with summer renters — tells me she keeps sheets she marks for “renters only” and if she’s accumulated duplicates of anything, like potato peelers for instance, she removes them. Really?

You know how many potato peelers I’ve found as I began this forced march ‘theirs/mine/toss’ purge of my house this week?? In 95-degree weather? Eight, so far. I have been sweating bullets, as my mother would’ve said, as  I finally visited the back of my spice drawer and tossed  marjoram and mustard powder, etc. “Best Used by June, 1989.”

I guess it’s going to be a nightmare until it’s a dream again. But I think it’ll be worth it. Better be. You know what? This old house is happy, looking more handsome than ever, with Baby by its side, like s/he’s always been there. There’s no place like homes.