Beginnings

You could say that the move we’ll soon be making back to Cooperstown started in 2014 when, on a visit to Peter and Aviva on Shacktown Mountain Road, we all drove to Cooperstown and Jay and I first saw what a beautiful community it was.  As we visited again, after Peter and Aviva moved there, we fell a little more in love with it each time.  Or you could say that it started in 2016 when my family sold our beloved property in Amenia, downstate in Dutchess County, and I found myself without a foothold in New York for the first time in my life.  Of course, you could say that it started when, that winter, Jay and I bought Sunnyhill, thinking that it would be a summer rental and a spring and fall vacation home for us. Or you could say that it started when Jay was slammed into by a driver running a red light in March of 2017.  That accident led to Jay’s knee surgery, his long rehabilitation, and a temporary end to his career.  Jay joining me in retirement for those months gave us the space to imagine our lives differently, and to decide to try living on Sunnyhill.

It doesn’t matter where I imagine the story begins.  As the song says, night becomes day, day turns to night – our stories just keep unrolling, with no real beginnings except birth and no real endings except death.  But as the California chapter of this journey comes to an end, I have been thinking back over how we got here, over the choices that led us to the home we will make in Cooperstown, at 37 Averill Road.  We shape our lives in so many ways, in the work we choose, the friends we make, the families we build, the values we develop, the things we learn.  And our lives are shaped by so many things outside our choosing, the families and times we are born into, the bodies we are born with and the genes they carry.  And sometimes our lives are shaped by a distracted driver running a red light.  Our lives are shaped too by what we hold onto and what we let go of.

When Joe and I bought the house on Thomas Drive we thought it would be our forever home – built on a single story, easy to manage financially, close to our family, friends and community. I loved our life on Thomas Drive and had not imagined I would let go of living near our kids, our beloved Chavurah, our Beth Am community, and the beautiful house and garden.  I loved it in its first incarnation with Joe, and I loved the home Jay and I made there after its massive remodel. When we left for Sunnyhill, we kept the door open to coming back, so it felt more like an experiment than a real letting go.  

After three years on Sunnyhill I could no longer imagine wanting to live in the density of the Bay Area despite all it meant giving up.  We knew that Sunnyhill, because of its remote location and the work of maintaining a large property, would not be our forever home.  But when Jay suggested selling it, moving to Pleasant Hill to establish residence here, and then moving back into the Village after we sold his place, I could scarcely imagine letting go of Sunnyhill.  I had come to love that space so – the long views, the dark night skies, the geese and crows, the rhythm of the seasons.  My sisters were close by, and we had made dear friends who would be hard to leave. But Jay’s plan made sense, and if we were ever going to do it, 2021 was a good time.  Moving was never going to get easier.  The pandemic market was very strong for selling Sunnyhill.  It would give us a couple of years to be back near the grandkids while they were still young enough to want to spend time with us.  And it would give Jay the chance to finish his career on his own terms.

I grew up with the lessons of the Holocaust.  The big lessons I took from what I learned are that nothing is permanent, and that what matters most are the things no one can take away from you. I didn’t grow up in fear of losing things. I grew up cherishing the things I couldn’t lose, enjoying the other things I had but believing that having them could never matter, having them was always temporary.  Closing the door to a beloved home I would never live in again, especially closing it by choice, gave me only a moment’s pause.  Young families love the house on Thomas Drive and Sunnyhill now. 

My Dad, who would have been 104 this week, used to call himself Lucky Louie, always more aware of his good luck than his occasional bad luck. I grew up with that same self image, that same outlook. I haven’t taken my good fortune for granted.  I never imagined that I earned it or deserved it. I never thought I could hold on to any particular bit of it. I always believed that there would be more good luck ahead.  And now there is the house at 37 Averill to look forward to, in the Village, but tucked into the woods at the edge, on a dead end road that turns into a trail that leads to Moe Pond.

On a reed at the side of the canal a dragonfly spreads its delicate orange wings in the sun and then flies off as we watch.  A cluster of oak leaves floats slowly past us on top of its reflection.  We won’t float or fly away, we’ll load Charlie and Hazel into the car and drive away from all the good fortune we’ve had in California towards all the good fortune ahead in Cooperstown.