Lucy’s Advice

Our last guests left for home yesterday. Its just Pam, Lucy and me now. The warmer, stormy weather of early July has given way to nearly a week of traditional Maine summer weather, mid-70’s sunshine with virtually no humidity. This morning it was 53 when I awoke at 6:00. Tomorrow morning I’m told to expect 50. I’m not sure I will ever become accustomed to this scene in the early morning…

I never want to get to the place as a human being when this doesn’t thrill me. If I ever start to take beauty like this for granted it will be time for me to assume room temperature and make room for someone younger and less jaded. It no longer seems fashionable to say but I believe that all of us should be grateful to live in such a beautiful country.

Progress is being made with the lake house. Inspections have been scheduled for Monday morning at 9:30. On that same day we will meet with a contractor to discuss decks, docks and finishing the basement. Meanwhile Pam has a zillion decorating ideas doing battle inside her adorable head and now has Wayfair on speed dial.

So, here’s the plan. We will leave Loon Landing for the last time on Friday morning the 11th of August heading back home where I will return to my profession with greater clarity and focus—since I will be doing it a few years longer than previously thought. I will work for six weeks with vigorous purpose. Then, on Thursday the 21st of September, Pam and I will leave Richmond with both of our vehicles packed to the gills with every Maine-themed item Pam has accumulated over the past forty years. We will arrive at our brand new empty lake house on Friday the 22nd where we will commence a three week getting to know you staycation. The time will largely be spent acquiring enough basic furniture to make the place presentable for prospective renters for the 6 weeks next summer we have allocated for them. Pam will have three full weeks to place her stamp on the property. My time will be spent buying yard working tools and putting them to proper use on our large sloping slice of the Maine woods that meanders from our back door down to the lake. By the time the three weeks are over we will have blisters where we didn’t even know we had skin. I will be much poorer. Hopefully all of the physical labor will help us shed the extraneous weight that this six weeks have added. It occurs to me that there may not be a bed to sleep on when we arrive. What am I thinking? No doubt Pam will have made the purchase and arranged for its delivery the day we arrive!

Since we signed the papers I have had a couple moments when I’ve thought, “What in the Sam Hill are you doing, Dunnevant? Just when you were about to celebrate being debt free for the first time since you were 19 years old, you go and buy a lake house—at 66 years old!!” Usually, I share these doubts with Lucy. When I do she looks at me like I’ve got two heads and says…

“Stop being drama queen. You got this.”