Sonoma Sojourn

The “Year of Me” has come and gone.

I returned from Sonoma last April and dove into the rental season at Nashaquisset two weeks later.

It was a tough summer. Unexpected work challenges soured the enjoyment I usually experience on Nantucket, but life ignored my angst and marched on. Rental guests arrived and departed; toilets clogged and were augered; trips to Nantucket’s extraordinary dump (“The Madaket Mall”) were exciting and fruitful. The season ended; I traveled to Singapore again for the month of November to visit Max and Mason and their parents.

2014 arrived. I sold my beloved home in Potter Pond and moved to Hingham, an historical, beautiful coast town just south of Boston. I now live in a house originally built in 1750 and added onto in the ensuing years. My condo (there are four units in the shingled and clapboarded house) is less than half the size of my Lexington space; it is a welcome challenge to pare down, simplify, creatively furnish to accommodate my life’s essentials.

A light gray paint (or tan, depending upon the light) covers the mustard yellow walls. Bright white gloss covers the avocado green trim throughout. Hardwood floors replace the matted blue shag carpeting; new tiling, glass shower door, white vanity, comfort-height toilet make the formerly pink and brown bathroom a distant memory. New windows actually close tight, and roman shades add a designer’s touch to the small rooms. Of course, all these changes made the 1985 vintage kitchen look sad and troubling, so that was replaced, too: all white cabinets, white appliances, granite counter top, and kitchen island make me feel at home again.

Smokey has adapted well. She squeezes through the cat door carved out of the cellar entrance, trots down the stairs to use her litter box, and then explores the three small tunnels cut into the old stone walls of the basement. She perches on her cat tree in the living room as neighbors walk their dogs and joggers trot by. She follows the progress of the commuter train as it passes by our front door and descends into the underpass that brings it to the other side of the town center so as not to disturb Hingham’s history.

And I drive the back roads, get lost, learn my way home. I walk into town, into the small shops whose owners are warm and welcoming. I find a new gas station, new car wash, new grocery store, the post office, the library. I marvel that yet another chapter has begun.

So now … this becomes my South Shore Sojourn. Bring it on!

Hingham is just to the left of the dot called “Cohasset”! You can see the Boston skyline from our waterfront ….