Morning coffee and Anshin
Cold coffee. Except for the first sip, which is usually too hot, all my coffees are cold. No, not ice cold. It might be nice to have a good doppio on ice, but this latté is lukewarm. I don’t know why I like coffee. Meh. There are so few perfect cups of coffee.
It’s raining. Maybe that’s why I’m obsessing on this tepid brown sludge. We’ve moved past snow and winter and are celebrating spring. It’s much easier to celebrate when the sun’s shining. But, I’ll admit I am enjoying the green. Lacy new green leaves, the woods are awakening. Yesterday she surprised me with batches of daffodils and hyacinths. OK, so this cup of coffee isn’t that bad.
Because of the Pandemic in 2020, property out in the country was selling ‘like hotcakes.’ People were trying to escape the disease ridden City, which was closed under lockdown. Houses were selling over the asking price, and buyers were competing to purchase homes. “You better hurry. I’d suggest that you offer more than the asking price if you really wanted to buy something,” our realtor told us.
The thing was, I wasn’t convinced that I wanted to buy something in Upstate New York. I was feeling more and more that I wanted to go back home to Vashon Island in Washington. Don and I had moved to New York with Erin and the twins to be closer to Shauna who worked in Manhattan. It was a surprising move, perhaps an experiment. We are West Coast people. I had visited New York City when I was a child and I grew up feeling that the East Coast was a foreign land. An interesting place with lots of rich smart people (like Woody Allen), but not a place I would live. And, besides, Shauna wasn’t even in the City. Because of COVID, Shauna and James were part of the disaspora that had to leave the City to protect James from the virus. We didn’t know when or if they would return. I missed our family on the West coast. Truth be told, I also missed our life abroad. I wasn’t really interested in moving permanently to New York.
Another truth be told, I was just plain tired. Of the Pandemic, renting, house and money worries, family worries, health worries. A lot. The Pandemic Melaise. I had lost sight of Erin and our dream to share a Homestead. I was disappointed that our other girls weren’t interested in joining us in that dream. Finally, I was afraid that we wouldn’t ever get back together as a family.
Don said, “Now, I don’t think you’ll like this one.” He meant by ‘one,’ one more piece of property to consider. Our two families, especially Don, Erin, and I had been looking at properties for over a year. “Squint your eyes, and look at these pictures and think of the possibilities.” Ug. Brown and boring. Oh, what the haywire! What else did I have to do? A ride in the country might be good for me.
We drove down a long dirt road lined with trees, bordered by a pond. We bumped along until we came to the end of the road. There I saw a very disappointing old rambler. Broken steps, dirty vinyl siding, junk in the yard, overgrown gardens. It wasn’t a place to love. I turned away from the house. I was drawn to the back where I was drawn to acres and acres of woods. There were trees everywhere. The property was actually a massive living forest. The house was an afterthought.
We weren’t here to see a house. We were here to meet the Woods.
I got out of the car, ignored the structure, and walked straight back where light filtered through a canopy of leaves. The Japanese talk about forest bathing 森林浴 shinrin-yoku, a peaceful walk through the woods. The woods invited us to take that walk. “Hey, Donny, come with me. Come take a walk with me through the Woods.”
After that August afternoon, Don and I returned many times to the abandoned house in the woods, just to sit on the back porch to be near the Woods. The old couple that owned the house had left months before. And, I was called back by the Woods. No judging. No pandemic. No sadness. Just being. Sometimes we walked through the Woods. Or we walked along the stream and through the meadow with spots of green moss. I called the Woods Anshin. 安心 . A place of sanctuary.
But, we couldn’t afford those woods. And, yes, there were a plethora of buyers. I didn’t want to play the game of competing for my Woods. It didn’t feel right and I was deeply afraid of being disappointed. We didn’t have the money to fight for her anyway. When our realtor told us that two other buyers were giving offers, I told her, “ I’m sorry, we don’t have the money to up the asking price,” I was done looking for property to buy. If it wasn’t Anshin, I didn’t want a different piece of property.
Funny that. I couldn’t get my Woods out of my mind. Every day I surreptitiously checked Zillow to see if the property had been sold. It hadn’t. The way houses were selling so quickly, I was surprised that that property hadn’t sold. The house was undervalued and it was in a desirable part of the mid Hudson Valley. I heard the the bordering park had offered to buy the Woods, to add her 20 acres to expand their park.
Well, the place wasn’t sold. Don made an offer and Erin wrote a sweet letter explaining why we were the best family to buy the property. The owner wrote back, “We’d prefer to sell the property to a nice family who will love it. And take care of it. Raise a family on it. Like we did.” We bought it at the asking price, “as is”.
The taxes are too high. And, we’ve had to do a lot of work on the house - a partial new roof, new water heater, solar panels, cut down a few trees, a new wood stove. And the list will go on and on. But, we now are stewards of the Woods. We don’t own the Woods as much as we are partners with the Woods, the birds, the deer. And, yes, we are caretakers of this old decrepit house that shelters us and that we are beginning to love.
