Winter-Spring Essay 2023: Couple Improves House

Last year Dave and I decided to do major work on our 26-year-old house. In March, it was all new windows. In September, it was all new upstairs flooring. The window replacement was intrusive, but we kept to our own space and basic routine. We did have to move furniture away from the windows, but most of it didn’t need to leave the room. In fact, we didn’t often need to leave the room. This did mean moments of loud pounding and the occasional rush of cool air into our space. But it worked.

The flooring – that was a different story. Before I tell it, let me take you back.

Before Dave and I moved into our house in Colorado in 1996, we had watched it being built. We even got involved in the planning and design. Why not? The whole street was a construction site! We were lucky to work with a builder who had good options for each house model and allowed us to inject our own ideas into the layout. We extended a foundation wall 4 feet, which meant a larger basement, a larger great room/nook on the 1st floor, and larger 2nd and 3rd bedrooms on the 2nd floor. We also absorbed the 4th bedroom into the master suite and combined the shower and tub space. This gave Dave a dressing area with closet and doubled the size of the master – er, my – closet: the Taj MaCloset.

Dave in his workshop soon after we moved into our house, March 1997.

After we moved in, construction continued. Dave always had a project going, and I would help. He installed extra shelves in the Taj MaCloset, and I agreed to finish the walls where screws protruded outside of the unit. I covered the screw heads with compound and then sanded it all down, but I guess never repainted. Several years later I noticed that the screws and compound had disappeared under a smooth layer of paint. “When did that happen?” I wondered. Dave had done the work without fanfare. Even though I hadn’t held up my end of the deal, he had my back.

Over time, we got busy on separate projects. I designed the landscaping and hired a company to do the work. Dave built furniture and put in a vegetable garden. We weeded, harvested, and cooked. Many years went by and life was sweetly routine. And at times, although the weight of daily living was balanced between us, we each took a part of it and carried it alone.

Still with me? Okay!

Jump ahead to Summer 2022. We had new windows and loved them. Now it was flooring time. The installation was limited to the 2nd floor, so it couldn’t be harder than the window project. Right? We picked out carpeting and vinyl tile at Carpet Masters and scheduled the installers to arrive the third week of September, on a Tuesday at 9:00am. I remembered all the projects we had worked on together and I looked forward to this.

A bathtub full of books before flooring installation, September 2022

Two days before the work began, Dave and I started moving furniture and odds and ends out of the 2nd floor. Dave used the hand truck to get a heavy dresser, a jewelry chest, and two desks down to the living room. I moved the books from my office into the guest bath tub. Dave then dismantled the bookcases and brought the boards downstairs. The lighter stuff we carried to the basement. Some of the pieces were awkward, so we carried them together. I felt the old connection.

By Monday, I had finished cooking lunches for the week and we had tackled the biggest and most awkward-to-move pieces. Except for our king-sized bed. We were willing to sleep on the floor for one night but no more. The futon mattress had not moved from that room since the late 1990s when the dudes from Front Range Futons had hauled it in. It was heavy and bulky and hard to move. We wanted to leave it for last. And this gave Dave time to come up with a detailed plan.

Early Tuesday morning, we moved the rest of my office furniture downstairs, and cleared out more from Dave’s office and the master. Just after 9:00am the three-man crew arrived. One guy introduced himself as Victor. The other two were brother Francisco and cousin Toni.

My office after new carpeting was installed, September 2022.

Victor told us his plan: the crew would lay out vinyl tile in the bathrooms upstairs at the same time they installed carpeting. Hmm. So much for our plan. But Dave acted fast. “That sounds great,” he said, “as long as you leave the master bedroom to last.” Victor agreed: our bedroom would be worked on only after the other two bedrooms were completed. The morning of the last day, we would move our bed together. It would be kind of fun.

The installers set up and began work. I sat at my laptop in the dining room intending to write. Above my head, the work crew ripped up flooring and pounded nails. I could hear Francisco and Toni call encouragement and warnings to each other as they worked while music – Mariachi? – played in the background. I couldn’t focus. It wasn’t just the noise and having to share my space with stacked furniture and miscellaneous belongings. I was not in my familiar space. So, I read the news, email, and social media. And played games. My writing would wait.

Dave moved his computer downstairs and sat across from me. He laughed from time to time. I was glad. He was listening to podcasts and watching YouTube and would probably move on to reading science and technology blogs as usual. We were two peas in a pod. Yet something wasn’t right.

New carpeting shines on our staircase while Dave works at his computer in the dining room during installation, September 2022.

Dave described it best. He was the first one up in the morning as usual, and could hear my first footfall pound the floor above his head as he sat at his computer. “I don’t always want to live this close,” he confessed. I could only agree. For more than half a week, we lived each other’s day: Every breath, cough, swallow, sniff, squeak of a chair. Every cough, burp, and fart. Every laugh, sigh, and grunt. Perhaps this was a bit too intimate. And on top of all that, we sat in this cramped space while our house sounded like it was falling down around us. A different kind of weight lay between us. And it was not one easy to share. But we were committed to this temporary displacement. We knew that, by evening, we would be moving furniture together again.

Each night after the crew left, and again the next morning, we moved items either back into a room that was finished or out of a room that was next. Our reward was settling down afterward with a snack in front of the TV while we congratulated each other on getting through another day.

Soon it was the evening before the last day. We knew that in the morning we had to move the king-sized futon mattress. Dave suggested the easiest way to manage this was to move it into my office. It was almost a straight shot down the hallway. There was just a slight jog to the left at the top of the stairs. The old carpeting had been ripped up in places, exposing rough and uneven patches of padding, but it was passable. So before bed, we put furniture back into my office, leaving a large area open for the mattress.

The guest bath floor finished and tub still full o’books halfway through flooring installation, September 2022.

Finally, it was Thursday morning. I pulled the duvet, blankets, sheets, and pad off our bed. Dave dragged the mattress into position in the doorway. I grabbed the other end, and 1,2, 3! we lifted it. Dave started through the hall, walking backwards. I followed, walking forwards. As we moved, the weight shifted slightly. I adjusted my hands on the slippery fabric and we continued down the hall together.

Suddenly Dave and the mattress came at me. Dave’s foot had caught in a fold in the floor padding. I took a step back, still clutching the fabric, then quickly shifted my own footing to regain my balance. I watched as Dave struggled to free himself. Meanwhile, my fingers were slipping. I couldn’t hold on much longer. After what seemed an eternity, Dave retrieved his foot. “Okay?” he called. “Yep!” I managed as the mattress shifted away from me again. I reset my grip. He started forward quickly. I now began to fall forward. I took a deep breath, braced my feet on the floor, then pushed up on the mattress while at the same time stepping underneath it. But my forward foot found the same pucker in that durn carpet padding Dave had. I let out an involuntary “Ooph!”and I was falling forward again.

The treacherous hallway after the flooring installation was complete, September 2022.

While balancing on one foot, I worked to retrieve my other foot. Again, it felt like an eternity before I felt it come free. I leaped up over the loose padding in time to move with Dave as he navigated the turn at the stair. Now I was a pro: I shifted my hands on the mattress while my body acted as counter balance and I cleared the doorway. We then laid that mattress down securely on the office floor. We stood up, breathing heavily.

“Nice job!”

“You, too!”

Neither of us could have carried that monster alone. To do it together, we had to move in a responsive, yet synchronized way. We had something to lose and to gain. The losses were minor: a sore back, a bruised arm. The gain was luxurious carpeting and beautiful vinyl tile flooring.

Dave and me, enjoying life, September 2022.

And we now know that we still got it!

Cloud Diary

December 27th

I wish to tell a tale of winter. It shows up with the outlines of a Norman Rockwell painting. Cold that rosies the cheek. Wind you must lean into (a wreath hung over one arm). Neighbors bent over snow shovels and so bundled up that you do not recognize them. Snow that connects one house to the next with a deep powder. Bleak skies of stratus clouds giving way to clear blue with patchworks of white. And when there is just enough moisture and uplift, the skies fill with fancy. Cumulus clouds disguised as clams shake from the soft sand. Dragons arch their wings. 1950s alien spacecraft puff by. And one tiny exhalation from our lungs disappears into BIG WIND. (Later, it will swirl and dance across the plains looking very much like Ginger Rogers in search of Fred Astaire.)

December 28th

I.
It was a long summer of clear blue skies. Not a shred of white anywhere. Today clouds dot that blue. After months of stretching out in lounge chairs sipping martinis or pilsners under perfect crystal blue, we mark the invasion. Some clouds know to swarm together and kidnap the sun!

But I know the secret of clouds.

II.
Several horses run by the window. Manes flowing, galloping east. They fly even before I’ve opened my eyes. I am sure of it. I could lay on the brown earth, look up and watch, even though it is well into winter. But I sit here, tea cooling at my elbow, watching. Castles with towering turrets. A bouquet of roses – each flower waving in the active air. Steam locomotives carrying passengers to Swiss chalets. Rabbits, round and fluffy. Albert Einstein, bristly mustache and wild hair.

Cumulus clouds hang over the Front Range.

December 30th

I.
The wind trundled the bed and shook the window panes this morning. “Time to get up! Before they fly!” The light grows and the moon dims and birds begin to wake. Finches twitter and squawk in the mugo pine, jumping from limb to limb under the canopy. The tufts of branches wave to the waning moon. The neighbors’ wind chimes clang and bell. The sound of my breathing mingles with the exhalations of the furnace and the hush of early morning traffic. So much dry air.

II.
A bright fingernail moon hangs in the southern sky. Cumulus clouds scoot by on steady gusts, backed by a field of blue. A ragtag bison gallops by, catching the first rays of the sun in its fur. Then a wayward breeze brings with it a brown wash. It smudges the moon. The wind billows in the eaves, rattles the window panes. The wash thickens, then dissolves in one swift moment. A rag gets caught in the rails of the fence. It twitches with each breath of wind.

Winter is here: shorter days, lower temperatures, wind. But with the late morning breezes, the clouds scatter. The sun pours down, at first a delight, then a baleful glare. The bird bath is empty. No hint of rain. No sleet. No snow.

III.
A snow storm is announced for New Year’s Eve. I plan to snuggle down with my sweetie and a glass of champagne. Watch flakes fall and accumulate on the ground and on every structure in sight. Safe and warm inside. For now, it is blue sky and a dancer in a tutu leaping across it in a jeté. She is the last act. Those thoughtful, whipped cotton clouds will soon be no more.

December 31st

I.
Clouds can carry smoke, not moisture. Turncoats.

II.
Yesterday afternoon, even while blue clung to the horizon, I smelled smoke. I shifted around the house like a zombie, watching the horizon. Clouds shifted and silted. Winds gusted over 100mph, pushing brown and orange puffs up the Front Range from the south. A small brush fire was reported just 10 miles west. It was soon snuffed out. Another fire 20 miles away roared: downed power lines had ignited the tall grasses of the high desert plain.

Yesterday, the celebrated snow did not come. By nightfall while fires still raged, that was a blessing. Piles of snow can smother flame, but also people. Hundreds of houses crumbled to ash and thousands of people ran for their lives. They did not stop to grab a coat. They grabbed their families. Meanwhile, all around them burnished clouds billowed.

III.
I still wish to tell a tale of winter. But I don’t know all the secrets of clouds.

This morning the Twin Sisters wear a smudged cloak. The sun rises bright and white, then disappears in gray. But fear crackles in the silence. Clouds bring burning.

I pass by the window. A patch of blue still clings to the horizon. It is now encircled in white. I choose sides: I will it to snow. I pull out the yoga mat and, just as I bow to loving kindness, my eye catches the first fall.

Then it snowed, dear reader. All day and into the night. Glorious tufts! Swirling with elan! A release of power! As if winter had been working all along to ease the pain of drought and had finally broken through clouds that it had not sent.

Our front yard on New Year’s Eve as the storm finally hit.

January 1st

I.
There is a huge pearl blanket overhead and a foot of snow on the ground. Holiday lights seem brighter than before, shining from inside white cocoons. House finches, gold finches brave the cold. A junco flies up to the squirrel baffle. She pecks at the seed caught there by the snow, then races to the ground. A squirrel plows through the drifts. He dives, then comes back up, shaking his fur and munching on sunflower husks and dropped seed. We nickname him The Surfing Squirrel.

The mugo pine is a warren. Song birds shelter in its branches in-between forays for seed. Some branches reach up with white mittens toward a gray sky. Others, weighed down with snow, bend towards the center, overlapping and creating nesting spots all the way down to the ground. “Cheerie! Cheerie!” The chickadees are here! They are the only ones who can call out with such cheer on a cold winter morning.

II.
A new shower of snow comes down with an insistence that demands respect. Please douse the remaining fires! Please smother the lasting fear and doubt! Now that you have finally arrived – good timing Old Man Winter! – please lift the veil just a little. Just enough to conduct people without homes to a safe and warm place. Just enough that those who have homes to return to, or those who were on the cusp of evacuating, have heat and light and food. Just enough that they have safe drinking water and all the supplies they need to get through this Cold Open of a New Year.

III.
My husband and I. We two. Together. Matching bowls of soup in front of the fire. An open bottle of wine. We are each other. The birds outside the window attenuate our relationship through glass.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a face peak in the window. I turn. It is gone.

Simple and Sweet. Then twisting. Wild magic strikes, then turning, steals away. Sunlight parts clouds and caresses the wound. Then brown clouds return, ready to pierce through the peace of another day. They dissolve into innocent white. And I gather. I gather the secrets of clouds.

— Ellen A. Wilkin

Note: I wrote this piece in response to the Marshall Fire that began south of Boulder, Colorado on December 30th 2021, right before a heavy snowfall was predicted. It was fully contained in a few days. No one in my family or among my friends was directly affected, except for some folks who had to evacuate, but returned safely to their homes. Hundreds of others lost their homes.

Clouds

They form into ships sailing
the blue-bright sea,
then dissolve to fragments of cotton batting
tumbling out of a worn pillow.

I patch them back together into
a boar running,
Europe –
with Italy,
the boot,
at the bottom.

They keep moving, shaping,
seeking form –
something more, something
they love enough to make solid.

I wait.

— Ellen A. Wilkin

Dave as a Beer

a long tall cool one, perhaps one hiding in a Pilsner glass. Long and slim,
he would have to be a beer of complex flavor. One with a bite—
not extremely bitter, but balanced with the sweet.
(So we aren’t talking a light beer here.)
Maybe a dark golden wheat. Yeah.
Heavy on the hops—especially in the nose.
You can smell him coming. You drink him
down and finish with a feel of lightness—
or maybe a red ale.
Medium-bodied with just a hint
of hoppy bitterness on the tongue
followed by amber sweetness
one that you don’t want to serve
too cold, just slightly chilled for
full expression of flavor when poured,
and just carbonated enough to
produce a lovely white foam
whose aroma is even stronger –
pungent spice – and which lingers
along the inside of the glass long
after the beer is finished. Maybe
a beer with an added
specialty spice. Cloves?
Sniff the glass and
you are spellbound,
your nose a bit tickled
by the sharp aroma.
You sip, do not gulp,
linger over it, talking
excitedly all the while
about its unique
characteristics.
Take a sip.
Hold it in
your mouth.
Let the liquid
ease over your
taste buds
one by one
sweetness
bitterness
yeastiness
then a
blend. You
swallow
refreshed,
those notes
lingering
in your
mouth.
You look at
the glass in
your hand.
The golden
red liquid
is clear—
no hint of
vagabond
yeast—yet
bubbles
trail up
and down
the glass
and give the
impression
that the
beer is alive
with endless energy.*

—Ellen A. Wilkin

*I created this poem and the collage as a gift for my husband. See the images above and below.

The inside of the card/wall-hanging that goes with this poem. I used my sturdy 20-year-old LaserJet printer and my new colored pencils, with a bit of collage, to create the effect.

Happy Winter!

Crisscross of lacy stone
A weave of winding, endless.
We follow as breath follows life,
winding our path.

Winter 2020-2021

Fall came with the gift of clear, early evenings and mornings that hesitated to erase the bright jewels still hanging from the heavens. Then November arrived with nothing but wind, cold, storm, and darkness. This year, that darkness was cumulative. The first hints arrived earlier, before spring was even sprung. Though the sun shown, its warmth just did not reach. It is hard to see those jewels hanging in the night when the clouds movie in and won't move out. So, I set up lights this year with even more determination than before: in the trees, in the windows, hanging from gutters. I twined solar lights along the back fence and around the bird bath. All this in the hope I could ward off melancholy. Success was neighbors telling me how beautiful the decorations were.

I hope you are keeping safe and healthy during this time of isolation, grief, and challenge. Dave and I have found an even simpler rhythm of life than we already had. We feel lucky that we are healthy, and happy working at home. We don't mind spending a lot of time together, even though we aren’t visiting friends and family. Entertaining each other can be a challenge. But together we manage to enjoy breakfasts, happy hours, and dinners; frequent role-playing, card, and board games; listening to favorite music; and watching favorite television and movies. And we now share walks. The pressure is eased, too, because we have discovered the magic of group phone/video calls and virtual happy hours. It's great to "see" and hear folks both far and near.

Right after lock-down, I signed up for a daily 30-minute poetry web seminar cleverly titled “POEMUNIZE.” taught by friend/poet/writer/editor/teacher Marj Hahne, the webinar began right around St. Patrick’s Day and ran for five weeks. I learned new ways to read and write poetry, and have written some pieces that I like. I have since taken two more webinars from Marj, including one called “Writing the Elegy.” I wrote about lost loved ones and lost opportunities, and soon began to recognize and express that extra layer of grief and loss I felt with the pandemic. I am sure you would recognize some of these losses: hugs, casual walks and greeting neighbors, recognizing neighbors in masks, eating out at new restaurants or traveling farther than a mile to go to the store or pick up take-out.

I confess we did make it to the mountains and to our favorite place, The Frisco Inn on Galena, in June. Before we arrived, the staff had been isolated for a month while they did a makeover of the inn. And the owner was there overseeing everything. The owner and his staff followed safety rules, and had all guests do the same, taking our temperatures upon arrival and drilling us about our health. Then we had a week of quiet strolling about town, riding our bikes up to Vale, and eating meals outside or at a distance from other guests inside. We hope it will be less restrictive when we return this June. But with the slow roll out of vaccinations, it will not likely be back to normal.

We also spent two nights in our own cabin at the Boulder Chautauqua for our 30th anniversary in September. The second night, an ice/snow/rain storm hit and took down branches, cutting power to our cabin and ending our stay. But we got a rain check on our anniversary dinner at Corrida, returning the following week for a decadent and romantic dinner.

We continue to play Dungeons & Dragons over the internet and are glad for the fun and challenging distraction. Dave is preparing to return to running D&D games as a Game Master (GM). He played and GM'd in high school and college, so he has a lot of experience. And now there are cool digital tools he can use for drawing maps and for 3D-modeling landscapes. When we play, we use a gaming environment called Roll20. It keeps track of the characters in the game and their abilities. And it handles dice rolls. For those who have played D&D the old-fashioned way with physical dice, you know how tedious rolling can be. Just the two of us played a 3-hour campaign over Christmas, with Dave as GM and me as the single player-character. Dave played the other characters in the game (including a cat and three crows named Cameron Crow, Russell Crow, and Crowtopher Walken). It was weird and fun!

The D&D character I play now is a half-elf bard called Divine. (My previous character Lia, a wood-elf monk, died along with all her companions in a necromancer accident – I don’t want to talk about it!) Divine believes she is divine: the gods interfered in her birth to make it possible for her human father and her elf mother to conceive. No one else believes her. She is quite full of herself but loves everyone. She collects and tells stories, plays her Bandore (like a lute), and sings at a drop of a hat. Anyone who knows me also knows how this is so-o-o-o up my alley. The other players don’t mind when I pull out my guitarlele and actually sing a few lines. My favorite tunes are simple story songs like “Little Black Rain Cloud” from Winnie The Pooh or “Feelin’ Groovy” by Simon and Garfunkel. I love this low-pressure way to perform. And what a great distraction from outside events!

We wish you a merry and warm winter season. Be safe. Keep your chins up.

Winter Poem

I am
Where the dark and the light meet
Where color is born
The prism
The point through which
white bends then divides,
spreading through the blanket of night

— Ellen A. Wilkin

Winter Letter 2019/2020

Darkness and snow descend;
The Clock on the Mantelpiece
Has nothing to recommend

-- W. H. Auden, Advent

I sit in the front room clutching a mug of Earl Grey and basking in the radiance of the Christmas tree. Its white lights and silver, gold, and multi-colored ornaments push back the advancing dusk. As the light fades, the candles in the window begin to glow, and both they and the white lights on the tree are reflected in the front and back windows. In the front yard, the blue lights on the evergreens snap on, and looking out, I see an overlay of white on blue. And now the solar lights on the pine at the back window fade in. The reflections multiply: outdoor lights reflecting back on themselves and onto each other and playing over the reflections of the indoor tree and the candles. I am pleased and my imagination runs away. I am the warder of the dark and the watcher over the last beacon at the edge of night!

The first hints of Winter came early this year with a snowstorm and heavy gray days over Thanksgiving. I nestled down into layers of cotton and fleece and wrote. While I’m working on a project, I struggle for inspiration, and gray, snow-choked days make it harder. I have successfully wooed it a time or two, but have more often suffered total failure. (Don’t try Spider Solitaire. Does. Not. Work.) Despite all my experience chasing inspiration over the years, I don’t know exactly what it is. Writers write about it. Musicians play and sing to it. Artists draw and paint and sculpt until they find it. Actors become someone else in search of it. When it comes – and there is no guarantee it arrives at all – it is not to be corralled. It does not follow a structure or schedule. It is or is not. Some folks seem to have it at their finger tips whenever they need it. Some of us don’t. In my experience, when inspiration comes it feels like being struck by lighting. And like lightening, it reveals something. Maybe a memory I’d forgotten or some understanding that I didn’t know I had. Inspiration can feel like a sudden collision of ideas that were unrelated but now have a relationship. A feeling that I am part of the world washes over me. And everything is right.

Beginning at the winter solstice, I try to capture the essence of Christmas to find inspiration. "Christmas" for me starts with a feeling of security and love that I had as a child fostered by the love and generosity of my parents. It then morphs into a tradition completely enacted and controlled by me. Some aspects are the same: Caroling, lights, baking, eating meat-heavy meals and sweets, erecting a tree with presents underneath. I stare into the red, green, blue, and gold lights on the mantelpiece and let my eyes go out of focus so the colors blur into a magical tapestry, just as I would as a child. (I had perfected the eye blur at Saint Mary's primary school during Friday morning mass. I would stare at the altar and let my eye muscles relax. The world became a wash of color and a hint of shape.) But forty-eight years later, my adult sensibilities come to bear on the process. I make wreaths from discarded evergreen branches, pine cones, and used red ribbons. I invite friends and family to make merry. I love the sugar-and-chocolate aroma of cookies baking and the earthy citrus spice taste of mulled-wine-soaked orange slices. I want to hear the tinkling of bells, the brass and boom and trill of instruments, and voices raised in song. It is a grand composition.

As an adult I love the reaction others sometimes have to my winter composition. For example, new neighbor CJ pointed us out to his children as we walked by and said “those are the folks with the blue lights.” Lonny, our neighbor for twenty years now, stopped by the house while walking his dog and, as she nosed into the bushes I had just decorated, said in his Texas drawl, “Yep. That’s the house with the blue lights, Peaches.” Susan, next door, commented as she walked by with her dog that I was "too ambitious." I told her I could stop anytime I wanted to. That's when it hit me: I was making myself happy. The whole point of this process was to find delight in my creativity and to connect with others. Perhaps that's inspiration in a nutshell: a feeling of connection, both to ourselves and to others. The completion of a circuit – in the brain, in the soul, in the body. Then we light up from inside. And then that brilliance spills into the outside world.

The final aspect of my winter composition is this: reaching out to all of you. Hope you find the inspiration to do wonderful and creative things for yourself and for others this year.