Making little home

April 11

We left Mexico on March 18^th. It took three airports and three planes, 19 hrs to get to Portland. We were to board the plane in Seattle for a 10:45 p.m. flight. Ron noticed that we weren’t seated together so I went to the counter and asked if it would be possible to change our seats so we could be together. There was only one rep at the counter and he said he could fix it but to have a seat until he was ready for us. Sometime later he called for boarding the plane and we headed for the gate. When the rep saw us, he asked us to sit down until later.  Although we had boarding passes, the airline did not show us on the passenger list. The rep called his boss in a panic trying to find out what to do with us. After lots of conversation, he told his boss he had held the plane up for ten minutes and he needed a decision. As his boss was speaking to him, he looked at us and said ‘get on the plane, row 12.’ I’ll just say we were glad to be home after a very long day. We literally fell into bed without unpacking our bags, a first for us.

So the virus is here and so is the ‘stay in place’ order. We went out for groceries but we feel it imperative that we were careful in case we were exposed to the virus in transit, passing through so many airports and planes.

It is now 3 ½ weeks since we returned with no symptoms and we are grateful.  After a few days at home, we partially moved into the casita.  We still cook and eat in the house but we sleep and bathe in the casita. We are very happy with the place. Yesterday the last of our furniture at the condo in Portland was moved here. We moved the couch and coffee table into the casita and had the movers move the armoire in there also. It really feels like home now. We will move the tv and a small bookcase in at some point but for now, we are set.

Since we cannot travel during the pandemic, we decided to continue to use a part of the house and the casita. We have 400sq. ft in the casita and feel there is no need to rent the house at this time, giving us the luxury of using it. Our plan has all along been to use the casita as a temporary residence when we return from long travels or from living abroad. Since both of those are on hold, we will use the casita and house and wait to rent the house until we can travel again.

We canceled two summer trips. Our motto is ‘Life is what happens when making other plans’. Many have asked us where we are moving and we don’t know. We have ruled out San Miguel which is a real disappointment. We have wanted to move there since 2015 but things have changed in the interim and it no longer fits. So, the search goes on. We are still considering Cuenca Ecuador, Southern Spain, and Portugal. No decisions will be made until we can visit these places.

In the meantime, we had sunny, warm days here all week and now another warm sunny week is predicted. So, we are working on changing the landscape on the side of the house where we will enter the casita once we rent the house. This week we pulled up a lot of weeds and grass and created a little sitting area outside our entry door. We also are creating an area for planting along the gravel path to our entry. It is a lot of physical work and I thoroughly enjoy it. It is not the same for Ron although he has worked hard by my side. What a guy! I am hopeful that my former neighbor Chris will come over and give me some help with planning the new landscaping. Chris is a much better designer than I am.

We walk daily since the gym is not open. I also lift free weights and do some floor exercises. We have kept our weight down which is our goal. Ron is 5 lbs under his high school weight and I am six pounds over my high school weight. It makes us happy and feels mostly fit! Ron has been adding shelves to the closet, organizing our storage section of the garage. He knows where every one of the 82 boxes and 11 bins are located and what is in each one of them. It is the best job we have ever done packing/storing our goods. We have pulled some decorative items from the boxes and it really helps to know where things are. Ron and I have collected items from our travels and now that we have visited 62 countries, some multiple times, we have managed to collect a lot of ‘stuff’, each holding a memory.

Today we found a bin of textiles that had not had its contents inventoried so I did that and I had a flood of memories going through the items; tablecloth  from an outdoor market in Zagreb, a hand-embroidered small cloth purse from a woman in a small village in Myanmar who invited us into her home so we could see how three generations lived together with dirt floors,(her house was quite tidy), a small batik wall hanging from an artists’ collective in Rep of GA, a small woven scarf from a rural woman with blackened teeth (to enhance her beauty) with whom we had tea in her home where they cooked over an open fire inside the house in Myanmar, three small embroideries we bought from a Muslim woman in the western part of Gujarat India near Pakistan. We visited her in her home which she had decorated with her needleworks and paintings on the walls. Each item brought back fond memories. It makes me quite grateful for the experiences Ron and I have had and particularly thankful for the kindness shown to us by complete strangers while traveling. We are indeed blessed.