And Just Like That

I am here in Michigan as of several days ago. Usually I arrive here on a Monday, but I came on Thursday so that I could go to No Kings III in Ann Arbor with my childhood pal and her husband. 

On Friday, I met with a potential roofer whom I liked a lot and whose quote was very reasonable.

The day of the protest, Saturday, was a cold day (about 40 degrees), but sunny and clear, and minus a stiff breeze. I put on a selection of winter outergarments and brought additional options in my backpack. I drove to my friend’s house, which is just a block from the house where I lived when I was born, and we walked a mile or so downtown.

There were a few speakers, who were concise and even inspiring, and some music, and then it was time to march. The woman right next to me had some sort of a contraption on a little wheeled cart. Wonderfully, it turned out to be a very powerful speaker which she used to blast rap music, which I felt was my reward for having endured a certain amount of folk singing. This woman, who I think was possibly about my age (namely 63) was dressed up like a king, with her face completely covered, and she had a fairly good-sized sign she was waving in the air, and she was pulling this speaker along, and she was also dancing.

I resolved that she was not going to be able to shake me, and I indeed followed her the entire way, also dancing, and full of joy. 

My friend and I had a spot of tea after walking back to her place, and then I stopped by the Argus Farm Stop (“Farmers Market Meets Grocery Store”) on Packard, which carries only things that come from Michigan. (At least, that’s what my friend said. I am not immediately seeing that on their website, but it was a very groovy place. They also have a café on Packard. Between the two is a Zen center.)

The next day, it became so warm that I had both breakfast and dinner outside on the deck. I was having some anxiety about the car, which became my mother’s once my father died. She was the registered owner, and we were both insured drivers.

I renewed the registration last year without any problems, but when I attempted that this year, I got a message saying the car was ineligible for registration; they had evidently gotten wind of my mother’s death. My first thought was to register the car in my sister’s name. However, that would entail also changing the insurance, and then I’d be driving around in a car without proper registration or insurance.

I looked around online and learned that only ten states allow you to register a car in a state that is not your home state, and Michigan is not one of them. By chance, just days earlier I had succeeded in setting up my own DTE (gas and electric) account. I thought I had done this before, but I hadn’t. This meant I could show the secretary of state a utility bill in my own name. I made an appointment at the secretary of state for the day before the registration would expire.

A day or two before that, it occurred to me that I had not really solved the problem; the secretary of state was going to say, “I don’t care where you live—you don’t own this car.” I remembered that, two years ago, they had said something about non-inheriting siblings having to sign off on my inheriting the car. I dug up those forms online and contacted the other two heiresses about needing their signatures.

Monday was a busy day. First I met with a third and final roofer, a fellow who was dazzlingly good-looking, possibly an explicit asset in his role as salesperson. What he proposed regarding the roof seemed reasonable and his quote was not out of the question, being literally twenty-five thousand dollars less than the highest quote I got from the first roofer several weeks ago, but it was well above the quote from the Friday fellow, so I texted the latter and said we were going to go with him.

Then the tree guy came over, mainly in regard to a hawthorn branch that is hanging over the street so low that motorists have to go around it. He looked around the yard and we discussed some other things that need doing. The biggest tree in the back yard is a silver maple. The tree guy said it is becoming vulnerable and that a stiff enough wind could cause it to come crashing onto the house, which would be undesirable. However, that tree is a pretty important feature of the property. I told my sister that if that tree is cut down, I’m not buying this house.

Then it was time to go to my appointment at the secretary of state. I arrived about 25 minutes early. They told me to stand on a certain yellow circle on the floor. Before I could even get properly situated on that spot, they called me over the counter and I gave them my pile of papers. The address was a non-issue. The person asked if I had something like a DTE bill and then I don’t think even looked at it. I couldn’t keep Dad’s license plate, so I indulged in a custom plate: MTLHEAD. (Referring to Darkthrone and Carcass and Paradise Lost, etc., but I guess could also pertain to my grey hair.)

When I left the secretary of state with all tasks satisfactorily completed, it was still one minute before my actual appointment time.

I can’t remember what I did yesterday, but whatever it was, it took all day. One thing I did was to take a walk around the neighborhood to try to pick a color for the new roof, and our roofer also came over with the contract to sign. I asked if we could drive around and look at a few particular houses, so we did that, and I signed the contract and wrote a check for the deposit.

In the evening, I went to Howie’s meditation group on Zoom. As he offered meditation instructions, he began by saying, “The past is gone.” For some reason, even though I’ve heard him say that approximately one thousand times over the 36 years, that landed as if someone had kicked me in the stomach, and I began to cry.

After we all sat together for about 45 minutes, Howie talked about Ajahn Sumedho and his advice to let go, let go, let go. He also talked about Ajahn Chah and quoted at length from something Ajahn Chah had said to a woman who was dying. Ajahn Chah told the woman that dying is normal and natural and that it doesn’t make sense that we cry when someone dies, because what guarantees death is birth. He said something like, “If you want to cry, you should cry when someone is born.”

Howie also said something about how it is what we cling to that causes us to suffer.

(He also said that when our mind wanders, it’s just the mind! He said that we think there’s a little person inside our head doing something wrong, but there isn’t! I realized that I do think exactly that. Funny.)

After the Zoom session ended, something suddenly became perfectly clear. I suddenly knew that I am going to sell this house to someone else. It has seemed unfair that I have to part with all these mementos after I’ve had to part with so much else, but, on the other hand, this has to be easier than what I’ve already done. I was corresponding with a friend who is going through a big pile of hard stuff all at once. She said, “I’ll be okay.” I wrote back, “Without a doubt. You have already been through hell and back. You are a proven strong person.” I can say the exact same to myself.

I know that on some level, hanging onto the stuff is about not quite letting it sink in that my mother is gone. After I realized I will sell the house, I cried and cried.

As mentioned, what has made it anguishing is that it’s optional. But clinging to the house and its contents is not onward leading. I can easily do this, and in fact, it’s kind of already done: The roof will be replaced Friday, the new air conditioner will be installed next week, the spring cleanup of the yard will be one day next week, and the tree work should also happen soon. We will disclose to potential buyers that the basement gets wet when it rains and what we have learned from various people about what might be done about this.

After that, it’s just a matter of an estate sale, cleaning the house, painting, and washing the windows. I have an appointment to speak with my realtor tomorrow, and I plan to call painters and estate sale people tomorrow.

I have thoroughly enjoyed eating on the deck and driving up and down in the car, but there is much I enjoy in San Francisco, too, not to mention my job, which I love. Any number of people have said I can probably get a hospital chaplain job in Michigan, and I imagine that is so, but there is no way I can replicate the perfect situation I currently have. Income-wise, it would be about the same as just retiring, so this decision has also largely turned on whether I’m ready to retire or not, and the answer is that I am not.

I came upon something I wrote down years ago about something Howie had said about making decisions, which is that he starts by taking happiness out of the equation, as he knows that his well-being is not dependent on any particular circumstances. This was very helpful to me, as it addressed my big fear, which is that I’ll make the wrong decision and wreck the rest of my life. I will be equally happy in either place (though my heart is really in Michigan).

I announced this only to my sister and I guess also to the person who reads this blog—you know who you are, dear friend—but I didn’t disseminate my decision any more widely than that, the date being what it is.

And I also told my sister I reserve the right to change my mind. Another reason it’s been hard to get rid of the stuff is that if I did buy the house, I’d be kicking myself for not hanging onto this or that piece of furniture that I don’t have room for in San Francisco. But I like the idea of emptying out the house, painting, re-roofing, making it a lovely blank slate for a potential new owner, and if I then decide that the new owner is me, it will be a different sort of thing than moving into Bugwalk’s Parents’ Museum / Mausoleum.