I had a particularly bad commute into work this morning. I’ve been getting used to driving the stick, but heavy traffic is just not fun, and I got stopped on an uphill ramp getting onto the Pike, and started rolling backwards when it was time to move again. By the time I got to the top of the overpass, I could smell the clutch burning, and when I got stopped again on an uphill at the Newton Corner offramp, I nearly had a panic attack. And then I got to the office, looked at my phone, and found out that our buyers wanted to close early, this Friday. Great, the one day I can’t take care of little things, and I need to attend to closing out accounts.

One of the things I needed to take care of was closing the account for the oil and getting a read of the amount of oil we’re leaving behind, so I called Fawcett Energy, our oil company. (Aside — they’ve been great to work with over the years). They told me they don’t send someone out to read the oil tank, and that I needed to stop by the house and read the gauge myself.

Gradually, I settled down, but as the day progressed, I started feeling waves of sadness. This would be my last time in this house.

This house has been in the family since it was built in 1940. My mother grew up there, and after my grandfather was widowed and remarried, my parents moved back there. Up until last September, it was the only home I’d ever had in all my remembered life.

That house has been the scene of numerous family get-togethers, Christmas Eves, cookouts, and birthday parties. I spent hours in the gardens, planting, weeding and digging over the soil, I had my darkroom there, getting me interested in photography. I’ve always taken pride that it’s been in the family that long.

When it came time to make a decision about where to live after Mum died, I vacillated. Part of me wanted to stay there. But it just wasn’t the same without her, and I was rattling around in an empty house. More significantly, the house needs a lot of repairs. My grandfather had added on to the dining room in the fifties, but that was about it. It needs a lot of attention, more than I can give it at my stage of life. So I started looking, but it wasn’t until I started looking at condos that I could see myself living somewhere else. My brother Tom actually found this place for me, and I moved in September.

Up until today, I’ve been surprisingly OK with leaving the house behind. This place is a lot newer and in much better shape. But something about the finality of passing papers hit me today, and as I pulled into the driveway for the last time, I started crying.

There was mail in the mailbox — mostly junk mail, but one piece addressed to the new owners. I got the key out of the lockbox and went in, leaving the mail on the counter. I walked around the house, and went into my old bedroom one last time. I looked at the dining room bay that my grandfather had built, and looked at the warm dining room floor that I’d helped my father sand when I was in 8th grade. And I cried some more.

I went downstairs, got a picture of the oil gauge, and took one more look at the workbench. And then it was time to leave.

After stopping to pick up groceries (and buy myself a treat), I got home, here. I walked into the kitchen, with its (semi) modern appliances and current construction, I reassured myself: I’d made the right decision.

The new owners are a young couple, looking to start a family. Hopefully, they have the time ahead of them to bring the old house up to date, and make it their home. I wish them all the best.

I decided to go through my old voicemails this evening. I don’t tend to do this very often, so I had a lot of junk there.

The oldest messages were from my mother, back in 2018. Still hale and healthy, she was calling on a Saturday night, probably from the Cape, wondering when I was going to arrive. Then a few more, at various intervals, asking where I was, or if I was going to be home for supper. I miss hearing her normal voice — for the last couple of years of her life, she just didn’t sound like herself; most of the affect had left her voice.

The we get into the period when I was taking care of her. Calls from Home Instead, scheduling home health aide coverage. Calls from various therapists, either letting me know they were on the way, or letting me know about her condition. More calls from Home Instead, usually calling to let me know of coverage problems as she needed more help, and they struggled with pandemic coverage.

Then we move into a period of calls from Cornerstone — usually calls from the nurse or the director letting me know of problems that had cropped up. I have to hand it to them, they were good about keeping on top of their residents, and communicating issues. And finally, calls from the Ellis dietician and nurses.

That was a long period of my life, and I don’t miss it at all, and I deleted most of those messages.

In between, there was a call from my Aunt Diane, and a couple from my Uncle Tom, both wanting at various times to set up visits with my mother. Both are now gone, and I’ve kept those messages.

Strange how short little routine messages can become keepsakes of loved ones who aren’t here anymore.

Happy New Year! I went into First Night last night, mainly for the Pipes and Pops concert at the Old South Church. I took in the parade and early fireworks as well. The parade was noticeably shorter than parades of old; it didn’t help that I couldn’t get a spot at the edge of the street so I didn’t have a good view. The ice sculptures were a shadow of what they were a decade ago.

I’m hoping this year will be one of settling in and consolidation. Last year was a year of major transitions — getting used to the new normal without Mum, deciding to move, finding a new place, and then moving. I’ve been living with the instability of not being sure where I’m going to live for at least five years now, and it’s nice to have it settled, at least for a while, I do need to get a couple more pieces of furniture, and get some of my photos up on the walls.

I’m going to have to spend some time looking for a new car soon. I’d like to replace this car while I’m still working, and it’s also starting to get expensive to operate. I spent over $3000 on it in October to deal with overheating; last Friday I started getting a check engine light, had it serviced, and found it had bad spark plugs and a leaky axle seal to the tune of $1600. It’s noticeable more peppy after being serviced, but we’re at the point where I’m spending as much on repairs as I would on car payments.

We’ve had to spend time settling my mother’s estate and dealing with that crap. Fortunately, it’s mostly done at this point. We had a clean-out company empty the old house on Friday; next step is to sell it. Hopefully, that will be done in a few months, and this transitional period will be over.

I’m looking forward to having more free time again, now that I’m not having to take care of Mum or maintain the old house. I’m hoping to be in shape for diving this year. I’m looking forward to spending more time on the kayak, the bicycle and the motorcycle this year. There are some other things I’m considering too.

Here’s to 2025.

We put up my first Christmas tree in my new home last week. Because we were doing the decorating on a work night, I spread the work over several evenings — it takes a while to get the tree into the stand, get it into the house and get the lights on it. I picked up the tree and got it into the stand after work on Tuesday. It was easier than it used to be in the old place; I used to have to bring it onto the porch, mount it, then carry it through the dining room to the living room. Here, I have a deck right off the living room, so I mounted it outside, then brought it inside and put it in the corner, not far from the sliders.

I think I wound up with a bigger tree than I’m used to. The tree was certainly a lot more expensive. But the ceilings here are taller than the old place. I used to have them make a fresh cut on the tree, then take more off both the top and bottom once I got it onto the porch. This time, they took six inches off the bottom, and I didn’t take anything more off. I did have to trim a little off the top, but I would have wanted to do this anyway, as the top spike extended about ten inches from the bulk of the tree. Tuesday night was damp, so I left it to dry overnight before getting the lights on it.

Wednesday, I added the lights. It took all the lights I had to cover it. I’ve been using LED lights for several years now, but they’re second generation lights that are a little bit less blue than the original LED lights. I also put up the window lights in the dining/living area. These windows look out to the back and aren’t visible from the street, though the side lights might be visible from the neighbor to the back. Really, the lights are more for me, to cast a glow in the room.

Thursday, my sisters and brother came over and we decorated the tree. I brought over most of the decorations from the old place– the tree decorations, the Christmas stable Dad made when I was a toddler, and a lot of the miscellaneous Mum had picked up over the years. We got the tree decorated, and I’ve noticed the girls put up some of the other decorations around the place.

It’s really pleasant to just sit with the room lights out and the tree lights on and listen to Christmas music.

There were brush fires in the Blue Hills last week. You could smell the smoke from here, and coming home on Tuesday, you could even see it.

I used to live close by, and I still often take the motorcycle through there. So, I followed the news closely. Fortunately, the rain over the weekend had put the fires out, at least for now, so I made a point to take a drive through there.

It turns out I’d slightly misunderstood where the fires were. I thought they were on the part of Hillside between the police station and Chickatawbut; instead, it was nearly directly opposite the Houghtons Pond parking lot.

I’ve been saying for years that the area was due for a fire — the area along the road has been choked with dead wood and brambles for over a decade. It looks like the fire started near the edge of the road, then climbed the hill a bit.

I walked a little way — a very little way — into the burned out section, and it was dispiriting to see how much broken glass was there. This glass looked like it had been through the fire, so clearly, people had been treating it as a trash can for quite a while. Odds are, the fire was probably started by someone flicking a cigarette out their car window as they drove by.

The fire destroyed a fair number of trees, probably affected wildlife, and could have threatened homes if the wind had shifted and it had been able to jump the road. But it also looks like it’s cleared out a lot of the underbrush, and that’s probably to the good. It would not surprise me if the DCR chose to conduct controlled burns further up the road, once the drought subsides, to get rid of the fuel load there.

Once I had finished looking at the burned out area, I drove past the Trailside side, then back along Unquity Road and back along Hillside again. It looks like those areas are fine.