This column was published September 20-21, 2024 in the Manhattan Mercury.
I sit on the deck, let the environment wash over me and try to relax. The turkey vultures seem awfully low, I can almost reach out and touch them. Then it hits me, they’re not low, I’m high. Thirteen hundred (and change) feet above sea level. Our new home is an entire Flint Hill higher than where we lived during the summer solstice.
It’s not much from a Rocky Mountain standpoint, but as Flint Hills go, they don’t get much higher. When I do a 360, the flat hilltops on the horizon give way to valleys below, which makes sense, since Flint Hills are basically just gracefully aging Rocky Mountains. A younger friend who traversed the hillsides to mark our property boundaries said it’s not a hike for the faint of heart.
Haven’t had much of a chance to relax this summer. When you move, the notion of down time, much less relaxation, pretty much gets carried away on a light and variable Kansas wind. I wouldn’t call it the summer of my discontent but uprooting your life, moving it four miles north and a quarter mile straight up creates some opportunities for stress and tension.
I’ve signed so many documents this summer without reading them, no doubt I am liable for something. At some point in the process, you just let go, trust the realtor, the banker, and the system.
Most folks our age downsize. We upsized. For the view, for the location, to entertain, to host overnight guests, and for deep and entrenched roots in Kansas and this region. But mostly, because it will make my wife happy and I have come to believe one of the reasons I remain upright, walking this planet is to assist in that endeavor.
She had a plan. I had a plan. She’s really good at managing big projects. I’m really good at structure and process. Point A to Point B. At the apex of the move, the best advice came from a friend who had recently trod this path. “Don’t kill each other.”
Along the way comes all manner of specialized vendor transactions. Locksmith, electrician, painters, rug merchants, lawnmowers (my walk-behind took one look at the area and surrendered), fence builders, plumbers, etc., et al, ad infinitum. All pros who admired our view, and all local, save a batch of bedroom furniture that arrived (unassembled, he added with just a hint of irritation) in fifteen boxes, each roughly the size of Wabaunsee County.
The first thing you notice out here is the sky. At night, free from city light ground clutter, it’s almost as though the big dipper senses my stress and wants to pour me a lemonade. The neighbors from the bottom of the hill (who hiked up with some home-baked banana chocolate bread) say there are nights when the Milky Way takes your breath away.
The name of our road is a Hebrew word for a day of redemption. Given my life experience, I’m convinced mine has already come, but I’m also quite sure it’s not etched in flint anywhere that I can only have one.
I’ll write another book in this house.
It’s a little sticky out here on the deck. Hot and windy, too. Summertime in Kansas, but autumn is coming. At 7:43 Sunday morning, in fact.
As the days and nights of my existence accumulate, I seem to have a much better sense of my purpose. To everything, there is a season. The once faint heart seems flint solid. A time for every purpose under heaven, which feels a little closer out here.
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