My grandfather once told me, “Time’s a bitch man, you wake up one morning, look around and everything’s fucking changed.”
Yeah, I know, not the way you would expect a grandfather to impart his wisdom to a kid, but you would have to have known my grandpa Nick. That’s for another post maybe. The sentiment applies to so many things, though. Your appearance, relationships, health or just your physical surroundings, where and how you live. You go along, day to day, everything is normal, the status quo. Then, a little change comes your way.
For me, the change was finding a new place to live. Looking for a small house in an area that has grown so much over the last 30 years that it is unrecognizable as its former self. The small beach cottages have been almost totally eradicated from the area, replaced by three-story, faux Tuscan Townhome monstrosities. The funky little beach town I moved to in the 1980’s is gone. This part I knew. Something else was gone, though. Something I hadn’t noticed. The light.
To maximize square footage on a home that is built on a 50×100 foot lot, there’s only one thing to do. Go up. Surrounded by and living ten feet away from another three story building means that most of your windows are in perpetual shadow, with views of a stucco wall. It just happened and I hadn’t even noticed. It just takes time.
Fortunately, there are a few of the little cottages left. We found one at the top of a hill, on a one-way street that is zoned only for single-family dwellings. This street holds no interest for developers. Not enough profit in one home per lot. It’s an oasis amidst all of the urban strip-mining.
And then, there is the light.
