(The door to the future, or at least one that is going to open soon. Photo Socotra.)

The Bay is smooth as silk this morning, dead calm and glassy after the winds at the end of the week that stirred up whitecaps. It was a rising gale then, sort of like the storm I felt emotionally walking into Raven and Big Mama’s house to survey the work that needed to be done to close the place out.

Forgive me for the severe case of naval-gazing. I can’t quite get my eyes back up on the horizon from the minutia of clearing out the house. I think I am about to get my life back, and it is a tantalizing prospect, and that is a concept I can thoroughly endorse.

I rose yesterday far too early to get Spike to the airplane, and saw the piles of remaining boxes with dread when I returned. Caleb-the-day-laborer came at ten- good kid. Thinking about the Army, lives north of the Bridge in the UP.

We- well, he- energetically attacked the library and the garage and got two huge loads to the dump and to Goodwill, and about three pm I realized I could cut him loose. There are some semi-precious things that need to go to the storage place- where the antiques went on Thursday. We can take those in Monday when the warehouse opens, and I will get another dumpster just in case, but the main floor is empty, and there is just the matter of Dad’s office to deal with.

So, I am taking some time today to get organized, Caleb is coming back with the truck tomorrow, and then I am going to declare myself done. My brother Spike is back in Arizona after doing yeoman’s work on toting carrying, since I fell down at the farm seven weeks ago and am still a gimp.

I hope to be on the road tomorrow about lunchtime and home Tuesday afternoon. This was a bitch, but it is done, the house is sold, and my time in the Little Village by the Bay in Michigan is just about over. Whew.

It was a great sunset last night, which I took in on cane and with a stiff whiskey. I have the day today to screw around and pack the car to determine what we take over to the moving and storage. God and my folks are smiling, I think.

There is more to be done, of course, and this is not over. Next up is the Probate hearing in a couple weeks, the funerals four weeks after that and the folks are done and buried and their affairs, except for a couple niggling details, wrapped up. Damn, this was a lot of work.

I will be cautious on the road, and cautious with the leg. If my brother had not been here things would have been a disaster. As it was, we had a celebration of sorts. It did not work out the way I expected, but it certainly worked out.

I put one of the last pictures of Raven and Big Mama on the counter of the kitchen so their smiling faces looked out across the work I was doing on the house. They are smiling, and that is the way I am going to remember this.

(Still life with phones, vegetables, Big Mama and Raven from 2011. Photos Socotra.)

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com