From Exurban to Eden
Stats: my former residence compared to my current residence
2,800 square feet to 840.
5 sinks to 2.
3 bathrooms to 1.
90 running feet of closet space to 12.
3 bedrooms to 1.
37’ living room to 14’.
25’ sun room to 3’ “deck”.
17 ‘ x 11’ den to 14’ x 11’ studio space/office/dressing room.
Spacious covered garage to open air parking lot under a tree in which
birds live.
In-unit washer/dryer to smaller in-unit washer/dryer.
One door (red) to apartment (with a 12’ x 7’ entrance area) to a front door
(red) that opens right into the living room (blech), BUT – bonus - a
back door! (also red, with an upper half that is glass).
Sidebar:
When I left Portland, Oregon to move to Washington, DC in August 2002,
I had a mantra – a haunting refrain: “No more mud. No more mud.”
Story:
I had flown to DC for my formal interview for the position of Creative Director for the American Red Cross Biomedical Services at national headquarters in the District. Trying to find the building in Arlington, VA where I was to be interviewed, I got all caught up in the round-about, winding, confusing maze of roads with the little, impossible to read brown signs. I kept circling past this tremendous, sprawling apartment building. Two of them actually, connected by a lobby. Some apartments had white- columned balconies, some had open balconies with glass wind-breakers, some had enclosed sun rooms. Random. Not a rigid exterior facade, despite the fact that the buildings were made of brick. Two very tall, very strewn-out high rises, with a fountain and circular driveway in front. Reminiscent of Miami Beach in the 1950’s.
I kept passing it while looking for the Red Cross offices, thinking: “I wonder what it would be like to live in a building like that.” This concrete rimmed structure with the “million dollar view” of the Potomac River, the Lincoln, Jefferson and Washington monuments, the Capitol et al, definitely did not present the threat of mud.
I lived in that building(s), The Belvedere, for a total of eight years.
I loved walking to all the sights that people from around the world travel to see. I felt ownership of the Memorials that were in my side yard, of the Key Bridge, Roosevelt Island, Georgetown. I walked the streets of the Wilson/Clarendon corridor hard, fast and frequently. This was the Belvedere in Rosslyn, THE place to live if you want no mud, an assigned garage space, storage, closets, safety, rules, quiet, red-doored importance. And an incinerator and trash room where I daintily released my daily bags of garbage down a shoot, and never had to drag garbage and recycling bins down a long pebbled and muddy driveway twice a week. So not-Portland.
Jesse and I lived in Unit #325 for three years. I thought it was great and was proud of it – except that there was no window in the kitchen. It’s only flaw.
When the weather was inhospitable, I often exercised by speed-walking the halls. Running was not allowed. I’d elevate to the top floor, the 18th, and race along the long halls. Taking the stairs between floors, I’d traverse back down to #325. One day I passed an open door to an apartment on the 11th floor. Painters had obviously been working in there and were on a break. I walked in. It was the biggest apartment I had ever seen except for Upper West Side New York pre-war apartments. Huge. I made a mental note: “#1119 is huge.” I continued my speed-walk and life.
Jesse graduated from high school and moved out. Mother contracted bacterial meningitis and became incapacitated. A year after Mother got sick and was well enough to be transported from New Jersey, she and her caregiver Hannah, Jesse’s cat Tizzy and I moved into Unit #1119! It just happened to become available exactly when we needed it! Three bedrooms each with its own dressing area, 3 bathrooms, 37’ living room, 25’ sunroom, my own den which was originally the dining room, now repurposed to suit my need for having someplace of my own that wasn’t my bedroom, an eat-in kitchen with a huge window! The 12’ entry hall had a 10’ mirrored-door coat closet. Huge.
We lived there for five years.
Mother died at the end of January 2010. Soon after, I moved out.
I feel entirely differently than when I lived in the rule-filled Belvedere. As soon as I was shown this 1940’s-built garden-apartment style 2-story home on the other side of Arlington, my blood pressure went down. I could feel myself relax. It was a duly noted phenomenon. During that same first showing, I walked in and looked at the shiny wood floors, bright white shuttered windows, charming staircase going upstairs, and thought “What a lovely entrance area.” That, it turned out, was the living room! Everything is relative. I took it immediately.
In the interest of full-disclosure, I now have to carry my garbage and recycling bags out my back door to a designated trash area.
To get there, I walk across the communal lawn. The communal lawn responds to precipitation in the predictable way: it becomes muddy. I don’t mind it too much as it reminds me of Portland. Wait a minute….
I guess I need to change my mantra.