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I lived on the right side of this Queen Anne victorian for twenty years: I, JB, Jessica, two dogs, two cats, one parakeet, three hamsters, two unwelcomed and evicted bats. The house was a disaster when first seen: but over time every wall of three floors and fourteen rooms on each side got a facelift, if only paint, this 28 room Victorian made into two condos with all the charm and built-ins and high ceilings so typical of the early 1900's.

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I made a sweet outdoor patio in the small side yard, complete with a small fishpond that was home to a koi fish named Tillie. Twice a day, sometimes three, I would visit her, ready my shrilly voice, stick my finger in the edge of the pond, and call: "Tillie! Hello Tillie!" Everytime, she would come.

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It got so I boasted about my friendship with Tillie to anyone passing by. That she froze one winter day when the electric heater failed tugs at me still. :-(

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Provincetown. This is where my heart tends to reside. You probably already know about my love affair with Provincetown. JB and I have a small condo there, the middle of a house sliced into three units, a sanctuary by any measure.
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The poet Mary Oliver has lived in Provincetown for many years and many of her poems are about the Provincelands. I will be back sometime in May. In August maybe, I will be able to stay for three uninterupted weeks. My family will come. We will walk to the bay some morninga at sunrise, take off our flipflops and squish our toes in the wet sand. I may write, perhaps finish, my second novel in Provincetown. I wrote the ending of the story of Alex and Lily on the sectional red couch, I too shocked at the ending even though the words were mine.

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Now I live in a six room ranch house in Western Massachusetts. This is a college town surrounded by farms, plenty of farms and plenty of year round fresh fruit and vegetables, plenty of gardens and plant sales, plenty of small town civility.

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Last week JB and I rearranged the furniture at # 9 and I am surprised how much of a sweet difference it has made on my well being. I don't like change (but I seem to encourage it.) God knows I've shown enough of my house here on my blog already, so I'll just sneak in a look or two of what's new:
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My Mom and Dad's formica kitchen table, now on the porch, in a room that has not yet settled on its identity; might still turn out to be a Cuban cafe, sort of...

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Aha! Now a real dining room where the little den used to be.
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I have the world's smallest kitchen. JB and I are tripping over one another at every turn. But this is a good place to be, a place to appreciate a roof that doesn't leak, friends who come for clinks!, my secret recipe for Colleen's cream cheese and lemon dessert.

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And in the garden of # 9, waiting for this incredible ice storm to pass and the snow to give way to the high March sun, Cholie the Garden Girl practices her dance moves.

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Just like me.

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love,

kj