An End Is Near

No, not THE end. If there were a nihilist in me, he might say THE end is always near but that’s a tad too Big Lebowski for a Tuesday morning. No, what I’m talking about is an end to several threads in my family’s life, and one big thread in mine.

As I chronicled in my previous post (Yikes! It’s been a while: all the way back in late August), I was unable to save — and stay in — the family home. And in fact, when my brother and I listed the home, it went in no time at all: listed on a Friday in September, hosted appointment-only showings (no open house) on Sunday, had several offers that evening and accepted one for well above asking price on Monday. Boom. Done.

The closing was scheduled for Nov. 6 — I said it either had to be by early October or after the Nov. 3 election. I chose those dates so that I could register in wherever I’d be moving to or I could simply vote here in my hometown. The buyers chose the latter, which was fine by me because that gave me more time — time to both savor my favorite season in my favorite place as well as pack everything up and go.

Well, it turns out there was some paperwork my mother had drawn up back in the ‘90s that I knew nothing about, and that once I did know about it assumed would be no problem as a result of the paperwork she and my father drew up in 2007. As if to verify Shakespeare’s centuries-old adage, %$#%@ lawyers felt otherwise. Specifically: the buyers’ %$#%@ title lawyer. Several other %$#%@ lawyers, including some high-falutin’ %$#%@ attorneys in Boston, thought differently but to no avail.

So I wound up having to track down an old friend of my father’s. He lives in New Jersey and hadn’t spoken to my father since around 2000. He was unaware that my dad had passed away four-plus years ago. But I found him, thanks to a long-time family friend, and that meant we didn’t have to go to court to deal with this bullshit. It did mean we had to get my sister’s signature on some paperwork — never mind that my brother and I bought her share of the house in 2016 and had that documentation here in Massachusetts (see above re: %$#%@ lawyers).

The problem was that Brooke was in Vancouver, Canada, filming a new TV show, and that meant visiting the American consulate to get a notary signature. Or maybe, just maybe (the %$#%@ lawyers weren’t sure), the Canadian version of a notary would suffice. Brooke, thank goodness, got the documents and found a Canadian notary, and did as they required. That meant waiting another two days for authentication, which she did. She promptly sent the signed and authenticated documents via FedEx overnight to the %$#%@ lawyers.

The problem THERE was that cross-border shipping, even for just papers and even when sent via FedEx overnight, had been said to take up a couple of weeks. One of the %$#%@ lawyers said he’d had some documents sent overnight from Montreal and they’d taken 18 days; Brooke had some eyeglasses shipped to her in Vancouver and they’d taken 30.

Well, Brooke dropped the stuff with FedEx (Who’s old enough to remember their original motto: “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight”?) last Friday, Nov. 13, a week after the originally scheduled closing. She sent along the tracking number which I checked Saturday morning and, glory be, the package was already in nearby Portsmouth, N.H., with a scheduled delivery Monday morning. Glory be! So at least THAT part worked out well.

That was yesterday. It’s now looking like the closing will take place this Thursday or Friday. I’ll need a day or so to finish up here: having the electricity shut off, getting my bed and the few kitchen items I’m still using to cook to storage, and then sweeping up. Where to then, well, that’s still TBD, and grist for a later (today) post.

The house is pretty much empty otherwise, and let me tell you: living in an empty house sucks. Especially a house that has been your spiritual home for almost 50 years and an island on which my family’s presence dates back at least 90 years. I have photos of my 6-year-old father on the beach during the summer of 1930, and I can only assume his parents came to Plum Island before that since they were poor, so I can’t imagine they made what was then a not-insignificant journey just on a whim. That line is now severed. Permanently? I don’t know. I kinda hope that in a couple of years I can find a small, old cottage — like the kind this house used to be — and it will be affordable enough for me to buy it and settle in for the duration. I guess we’ll see.

I get choked up every now and then, but by and large I’m mostly numb to it. “What’s done is done,” I say. And it’s a very first-world problem to face. I’m not facing a second major hurricane in less than two weeks and I’m not being persecuted or killed by cops because of my skin color. But it still hurts.

And then, a couple of days ago, a friend posted the image I’ve attached to this lament. And it helped me remember that change IS the only constant, and that I need to embrace it, not be sad and fearful. So that’s how I’m choosing to take it all. At least I’m trying to take it all that way. And I’m sure I’ll be crying as I drive over the bridge and off Plum Island at the end of this week.

Where To Next?

The wind raging outside right now is a reminder that everything changes, that no matter whether you’re in the middle of the prettiest sunny day or the most frightening storm, well, whatever it is it ain’t gonna last. That the wind is blowing out of the northwest and bringing with it a definite feel of autumn only adds to the feeling of impermanence.

The wind adds to the melancholy I’m wallowing in right now after resigning myself to the fact that I will not be able to buy out my brother and keep the house that has been in our family since 1972. Plum Island, the building and the place itself, are what my heart and soul have considered home going back as far as I have memories. No matter how far I roamed and how much I felt at home there, Plum Island was always home. It was always going to be home. Or so I thought.

I explored a ton of options for how I might keep the place but in the end, nothing has worked out. All my plans hinged on getting my career going again, and that has proven a tough nut to crack. I’ve applied for — and even gotten unsolicited calls about — some jobs that were, to be blunt, spot-on fits for my experience and expertise. But in the end, those have ultimately gone nowhere.

I have contract work lined up from now until June 2021 that pays me enough to afford a loan payment, but because it’s all 1099 work (as opposed to W-2 work), no bank will give me the loan. I even looked into some wonderful friends who expressed interest in buying into a portion of the house in an effort to reduce the loan I would need.

But in the end, the lack of security of my income situation scared me away. In any scenario I’d have been house-poor and the slightest interruption in income would have led me perilously close to losing the house and having nothing to show for it. And that insecurity I couldn’t handle.

So my brother and I have settled on a realtor and had a home stager in to make a plan for listing the place. It should go pretty quickly and for a pretty penny, so that will be nice, but I’ll still be a wreck. And while I’ve always been a vagabond, I always had Plum Island to return to. Without that anchor, that foundation, I don’t know how I’ll feel.

Granted, these are all very much first-world problems. I’m not getting shot by a cop, I don’t have the coronavirus and I’m not worried about where my next meal is coming from. I am well aware of how easy I have it. But it’s still going to be emotionally traumatic for me. Sorry if you think that makes me a wimp.

And it raises a big question: what next? WHERE next?

The obvious option would be to return to living aboard Further down in Maryland, and that’s definitely a possibility. But I have to confess that living aboard for another northern winter doesn’t really appeal to me, and more pertinently, I’m not sure I want to live in a marina — with communal bathrooms and showers and laundry rooms — during a global pandemic.

What about sailing away? Well, as much as that seems like a great way to avoid the pandemic, where would I go? Most of the islands in the Caribbean are not allowing American boats to enter (as of this writing). The rally I was signed up for in November 2018 says it’s still set to go to Antigua this year but I’m curious to hear how that’s gonna work. And hey, Barbados and Bermuda both have new programs for telecommuters so maybe those are the sailing destinations this winter.

Sailing to warmth…what about Florida? Given that state’s response to the pandemic, sailing there seems akin to sailing to Chernobyl or Fukushima. The Florida Keys are intriguing, so let’s call them a possibility.

Then there are options where I leave Further on land all winter to get some work done on her and just drive around the U.S. alternating between mountains and desert and beach, camping everywhere and living on the cheap while I telecommute. Back to old haunts in Utah, Montana, San Diego or even Alaska? Set up camp on the Outer Banks for surf and kiting? It sure seems like there won’t be any old-guy hockey this winter, so my beloved skates in Exeter, New Hampshire, and Hamilton, Massachusetts, aren’t factors.

Or instead of driving, how about flying somewhere — back to Puerto Escondido, Mexico, or some other warm, surfy destination — to telecommute and live on the cheap? That’s definitely worth considering.

Were it not for the damned coronavirus, these would be really interesting deliberations. But regardless of travel mode, the pandemic has thrown a monkey wrench into any contemplation of travel or settling anywhere — not least because, as mentioned above, we Americans aren’t welcome, really, anywhere (so much winning…).

And there’s always the possibility that one of these jobs I’ve put in for — there are a couple out there right now that are both right in my wheelhouse and very interesting to me — will come in. But in this COVID-dominated era, even those jobs are largely remote, so my location won’t necessarily be determined by my job.

There’s another question, too: where do I want to establish my residency after the Plum Island house sells? Tax rates, insurance rates, rents, cost of living, politics…all are factors that will determine which state will become my next legal home. And, of course, everything’s on the table if the election results in November go a certain way.

Again, all first-world problems, I realize. But I’m already gutted when I think about driving away that final time from the home where I thought I’d spend my entire life. Here’s hoping the wind will be at my back that day.

DIY Haircut

If you had told me that I would ever try to cut my own hair, I’d have told you you were nuts. Not only would my vanity prevent me from doing so, I feared my klutziness would lead me  to wind up with quilt-like scalp full of bald patches or even worse, I’d end up slitting my own throat.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Enter 2020 and the coronavirus.

And with every data point indicating we’ve a LONG way to go with this damned pandemic (despite our knuckleheaded government trying to accelerate reopening) and not wanting to risk my health any more than necessary, and not really digging my descent into looking like Sideshow Bob, I decided to go for it. I mean, why the hell not? Mother Nature has already taken care of the bald patch (singular, but it’s not small and it seems to be growing) and it’s not like my hair has ever been some fancy style statement. Besides, if I screwed it up TOO horribly, well, like everyone else I’m pretty much housebound so I’d have time to grow it out.

One ironic sidebar was that as I was going through my parents’ stuff recently, I came across a ton of photos from back in my youth. Man, oh man…I had a MOP when I was kid: big, curly locks that made me look like a blond version of the drummer for the band, Boston. Oh, how I wish I still had that ‘do. Ah well…such is life, right?!

Anyway, a couple of YouTube videos later and it was time. And, well, I don’t think it turned out too bad, do you? No, it’s not a good haircut but who cares? It was free. And my modeling days are over anyway. And to be honest: I had a good time. It was fun going for it, trying something new.

And hey, maybe my modeling career can make a comeback…