FLOWN - 19 September 2011
19th September, 2011
The light changed late afternoon yesterday, gunmetal grey clouds filling the sky, a wind stirring the leaves, temperature dropping. It seemed fitting, this shift in seasons, as yesterday was the closing of the Cape house. It was scheduled for 3pm., EST which is 9pm. here in Provence and, having attended 3 closings in my time, I knew it would take about 2 hours. So we knew we were in for a wait.
We lit the fire and toasted a baguette over it, then spread its smoky surface with butter and honey - comfort food. We follow it with left-over lamb stew and watched a movie, checking our email every 15 minutes to see if there were any last minute shenanigans to deal with in this seemingly never-ending process. I drank 2 cups of lavender and linden blossom tea, to calm the jitters. Was it really finally happening or would some last minute, unforeseen thing crop up, has had been the case so many times this year: the original buyers backing out at the last minute, the partner who was too tall for the downstairs ceiling, the stock market crash, an obtuse clause that looked to be a deal-breaker and on and on?
At 10:30 pm., we went to bed with hot water bottles and our books and looked at the clock and the email every 5 minutes. And then, at 10:54pm., our time, our lawyer emailed: closing accomplished. A ridiculously loud "Whoopee" ripped itself from my lungs. We looked at each other and started giggling. We lay there for an hour, like kids on Christmas Eve, slowly taking in that Santa had already arrived and instead of leaving a sack of toys took away a pile of debt. We lay there soaking up the expansiveness, the lightness of disencumbrance from debt, from responsibility and maintenance, from leaking roofs and bad neighbors, hurricane warnings and flood insurance. And as all the anxiety and negativity lifted, we drifted into sleep, free now to enjoy the best of memories that 21 years of living together in that house gave to us, our children, our grandchildren and our friends.
These 2 old birds have well and truly flown the coop. Next stop...?