A storm front has rolled into town this weekend, bringing high winds and warnings of flooding. Friday night I listened to what sounded like a downpour hitting the gravel drive, but it was really just the wind whipping through the tall pines surrounding The Sanctuary.
I moved into my new place in March. It is never a great idea to do anything time-consuming in the middle of tax season, but I could not let this opportunity slip by. Outside of one annoying thing, I was pretty happy at my old apartment. My lease was not up until the end of May, but this new place was something special. So special that it hasn't been advertised in years. You have to know a guy.
A buddy of mine was moving out of the place and asked if I wanted to take over. He in turn had moved in after a friend gave him the heads up that it was available. The house has been passed along almost like an inheritance. Not only is the place special enough to earn the moniker The Sanctuary, but the landladies are special in their own right. I think before the place gets passed down, the new person is evaluated on how they will treat the landladies as much as the house.
Well, house might be a bit misleading. It is more of a cottage. At something like 550 square feet, it is some 300 square feet smaller than my apartment was. It is not often that you need to downsize when moving from an apartment to a house, but there it is.
The cottage is downhill from the house where the landladies live. The mother (92 and still going strong) has been there since sometime in the 50s, and used to own the land all the way to the lake. At some point, they sold the waterfront section, but the old cottage remained. I think they rent it out mostly to cover the taxes these days. What used to be a sleepy suburb is now a booming town, and property values (and taxes) continue to rise as those 50s ramblers are knocked down for McMansions.
An opposite movement has been gaining traction with some - Tiny Houses. A pack rat by nature and nurture, I am surrounded by stuff like most people these days. For me, it is not new and shiny stuff, but more sentimental and broken stuff. The idea of a Tiny House, living cleaner and more simply, is one I would like to pursue.
I suppose this desire has been in the background for a while now. Henry David Thoreau's Walden and the PBS special "Alone in the Wilderness" have always had a place in my heart. To go off into the woods and live the slower and more attuned life. But one thing that has changed over the years is the need for contact. I have discovered that although I am pretty comfortable being on my own, it isn't the best thing for me. If I spend too much time by myself, walls come up and thoughts and navel-gazing get out of control. I need to be pulled outside of myself on a regular basis.
And the sanctuary seems to be the perfect next step. It is not exactly a Tiny House (generally under 320 square feet), but it is certainly small enough to make you reevaluate what you really need, and what is just excess baggage you have been carrying around. It is also a spin on that cabin in the woods. Surrounded by trees down a gravel road, it feels away from the world, yet downtown is a short two miles away. Secluded, yet connected.
In my apartment, I had to run a fan at night to provide some white noise to try and cover the creaking of my upstairs neighbor pacing the balsa wood floors at 3am. In The Sanctuary, there is less need for white noise, though nature was providing its fair share Friday night. One more benefit to having my own four walls is the ability to get something else that has been missing from my life.
A dog.
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