VOICES

Not the ones in my head, the ones outside my window. My children are home, and they are building a goat pen on a rise they've christened, Goat Hill, just behind the house. My Goddaughter and her "other",  recently moved here from Colorado, are out there working with them. I think the idea was hers. I know whose idea it wasn't - Mine!  I have nothing against goats other than the fact that they're bear and coyote bait, but that's more their problem than mine. APB: bear sign this morning. My part of the deal is no deal. I admit, they're cute, those goats - pygmy goats - but I'm not gonna be the one trudging uphill through two feet of snow to feed them, although, knowing how things go around this joint, I might. But, this is more than a simple event. It's a step in the transition of this place to their place. A subtle takeover, subliminal lurch by subliminal lurch. I can really see it now. We're a family under one roof again, and I love it. But, Jamie and I can feel a power shift underway, a slight tectonic shudder, mild but noticeable. Ergo, goat. Goats. I was railroaded. Children do that.  There are three generations here now, my grandson being #3. Tell me this: why does it seem to have caught me by surprise?

The house we live in had thirteen bedrooms and five bathrooms when we bought it - an old, ramshackle farmhouse on a site occupied since 1820. It had been an inn and hunting lodge for dozens of years, a working farm for more. It sat on one hundred four acres. One foot through the door, and I thought, "What're we gonna do with all this house? No charm. No warmth. Gray walls?" Jamie said, "Come with me", so I followed her on a walk behind the house up to one of the meadows leading north to the base of Evergreen Mountain. One hundred and four acres. Attached to state land. The northern Catskill Forest. Nice country. Still, I was not keen to come back East. I had a place in Montana in the Bitter Root Valley which I'd dreamed about since I was old enough to point out Montana on a map.  I loved it there. It was exciting simply to step out the door. I'd deliberately put the East behind me. I didn't want it ahead of me. 

"Turn around," she said. I did, faced south, and was taken by the sight of a mountain valley that might have been photographed for a full page spread in Life Magazine (when there was one). It had recently rained, so clouds like plumes rose from hollows in the mountains. It wasn't the Rockies. It was the northern Catskills, part of the Appalachian Range.The Rockies challenge. The Catskills invite. The only sound were bees scouting wildflowers. It was peaceful. Maple and oak, ash and poplar, puffed out their chests proud with new green.  A deciduous forest. A beautiful Spring season, the kind I'd  grown up with in Maryland. Well, here it was. You, Stephen, a little boy rolling down a grassy hill ripe with the scent of wild onions. Collecting fireflies in a bottle. Yellow forsythia. Autumn leaves.

Jamie's Words of Wisdom: "It's possible to have everything you want in life. You just can't have it all at the same time."

Another transition. 

Time to move on.
It was not easy.

It was not easy.

Then J found our house.

About this house. We bought it with every dish, every cup, every glass, sheets, beds, bureaus...The idea was to build a smaller house on the back acreage, but we've never gotten around to it because, before we understood was what happening, our house was full. We were two people with thirteen bedrooms, and every room was occupied or had been occupied or would be occupied. I came here for the land, the intensity of the seasons, apples and blueberries, the freedom to walk without end. I never anticipated our house would give so much pleasure to so many people, so many different kinds of people, Ellis Island, Coney Island, Manhattan Island, Channel Islands - every artistic type on earth, major execs, minor execs, entire families at once, various and sundry characters. Of course, we have rules and boundaries, or else we'd have to be marched out drooling in straight jackets.

Our rules are simple: coffee all day, muffins and breakfast stuff (At this point, I take my leave and go do what I gotta do); frig full for the taking; the day is yours - hike, bike, fish, wade in the water, read on front porch, stare at the fire in the fireplace, take a nap.  Lunch stuff spread out on kitchen table. Help yourself. Meet for dinner. We've run the gamut: my family; Jamie's family; other families; folks in trouble; Xmas, Hannukah, Easter, Passover; couples having fun; couples not having so much fun...One close friend, a casting director and genius of a cook, came up here just to spend the week-end cooking. And let's not forget GreenePlays - a theater we ran in a barn - 30 actors and crew - 3 meals a day - every bed filled. We must've been out of our minds, but what a success and so much fun, so much toil and trouble, too, but worth it. 

A creek runs in front of the house with a small bridge over it. .J and I stand there at night looking back at a full house, windows lit, calm and quiet, folks sleeping or taking showers or a midnight snack or rocking on the front porch listening to the creek. We stand there, Jamie and I, happy we could do this."Damn," I think to myself, "When did we turn into the Waltons?" 

So, all those voices outside my window? Wind chimes. My son and daughter discussing future plans for the house, the raucous laughter of my "Broke the Mold" Goddaughter, the shrieks of unbridled joy from my grandson, the bleats of the two goats he's chasing, the barks of the two dogs in on the chase, damn near everything except a partridge in a pear tree.  Actually, we do have partridges and a pear tree, although I've never seen one in it. 

"Good night, Jamie. Good night, Sevi. Good night, Madden, Good night, Dorian...Oh, my God, what's happened to me?"