"...Gonna Be Some Changes Made"

A life in flux

You all subscribed (or didn’t, ya bastids!), and then I seemingly took a vow of silence. Lots going on, kind of like in winter, in a forest: looks quiet – some would mistakenly say “dead” – on the surface, but underground there are synapses connecting, firing, doing their wintry things that, in the cyclic sweep of things, precede and prepare for Spring. Some things have reached their limit and are dying back. And some are shifting with results I can’t yet see. Fractals. Holograms. Mysteries.

Here’s what’s happening with me. I started conferring with my friend and coach, Vanessa Kettner, about the prospects for what she calls “Horizontal Living.” That’s when you don’t have all of your life’s elements in one country, but spread out into two or three or more. Your home may be in one place, investments in another, family in a third, job in a fourth, and so on. Vertical Living is when all that is in one place. My interest started with my disgust at America, but has morphed into something more personal, more of a sense of . . . what’s a good analogy? Like when you’ve stayed in a job or relationship too long. Some alarm clock within becomes not just audible, but annoyingly insistent. “You don’t belong here any more!” That started a cascade of things.

I enlisted the help of Stephanee Johnson, who organizes places for a living. My place needs organizing. Lifelong bachelor: do I need to paint a more detailed picture? She has already reorganized so much, and carted away a ton of superfluous stuff. We’re about halfway there. She’s going to make my closets usable, and bring in a few more sociable pieces of furniture so I can entertain or rent the place out. She’s also good company, which helps, and is not judgmental, which ditto.

Last time she was here, she pivoted gracefully when I told her the carpet cleaners were coming the next day. She started helping me to move things around so the cleaning could get done. Those carpets had not been cleaned in . . . well, the house was built in 1870, so . . . a very long time. I’ve been here for five years, and I’m pretty sure they weren’t cleaned for a while before I moved in. Even clean, they aren’t pretty, and seams are in strange places. But it’s SO much better.

My yard was as messy as my house and carpets. I’m a reader, not a weeder. So I enlisted the services of Eric Wold/Bare Root Natives, landscaper extraordinaire, to give the backyard a makeover. And the front bits of yard, too (which he poetically refers to as “the Hell strip” because it’s between the street and sidewalk). Just cleaning up the detritus has been a revelation. He brought an arborist over last week. He opened up the canopy at the base of the bluff, got the limbs off the cables and wires back there, and cleaned out all the vines that had taken over – and some trash left over from the previous owners. The place has clear potential that can be seen now. It’s nice to be putting the house in order, as the Dubuque Museum of Art is about to be torn down and replaced with a gorgeous new building. I want my house to complement, or at least not embarrass, the new shining crown of Dubuque.

Most recently, I’ve started trying to tackle the thorny question of work and income (which was the impetus for finally figuring out how to take subscriptions here on Substack). Teaching English as a Foreign Language seems to have potential.

To make sense of all that, you’ll need some background. But I’ve taken enough of your time already, so I will save that for the next installment. (Can’t break a long silence with a post the length of a Russian novel.) I’ll start by introducing you to a new word, so YOU have a sense of where this is going. Which is more than I’ve ever had.

See you again soon. For those awaiting the next book review, thanks for your patience. Life sometimes precludes reading. But that’ll be coming back soon. It always has before.