Swan Sanctuary

When you first move into a new home, whether you are renting or buying it, there are always unexpected discoveries that were not evident when you signed your mortgage papers, or your lease  agreement. With a home purchase, you are entitled to a home inspection and a walk-through, but these do not reveal everything about the home. A rental situation puts the tenant in a rushed situation. The landlord or property manager is often reserved and may have several other people wanting to view the same property. Many landlords require background checks and application fees, assuming the applicant is already guilty of something before being proven innocent.

You can find out many things about an area before moving there, such as average temperatures and rainfall, the proximity of pedophiles, the nearby schools, parks, shopping, and many other statistics. There are always surprises; however, once you have unpacked your boxes. In the place where I am currently living, the plumbing was connected wrong in the kitchen sink. Hot water is on the right and cold water is on the left. This confuses me frequently, causing me to waste water unnecessarily. Sometimes, after you have moved into a new place, you discover that your neighbor plays his music really loudly. If you live in an apartment complex, you may find that the neighbor above you has noisy children that use the sofa as a diving board onto the floor. Another neighbor may have a dog, or several dogs, that bark incessantly. If you are buying your own home, your next door neighbor might like to mow his lawn at 6:00 am on Sunday mornings, or host parties lasting until dawn. By the same token, you might have great neighbors who become lasting friends.

Sometimes you discover structural problems within a home, or broken windows, or plumbing problems. There may be damage left by a previous renter that was never repaired. The smoke that I encountered in the first place I rented here in Hot Springs, was not immediately detectable. It did not help that I had rented it from 1,100 miles away without the advantage of viewing it beforehand. The next place I moved into, as I have already described, offered me little improvement other than the fact that it was close to my work and it was smoke-free. It has taken me weeks to clean it. Fortunately, making a house into a home is something that comes naturally to me, so I have made it at least somewhat comfortable. There are several things about this place that are now causing me to have “renter’s remorse”. The ac/heater unit was not working when I moved in. The landlady told me she would order a new one and borrowed a space heater for me to use in the interim. It was still cold here in March – and in April – and even in May. It was 2 ½ months before she finally delivered on that promise! I asked for screens for my two windows in the middle of March, which should not have been missing to begin with. I was told that she was coming out to measure them weeks later, and that they had been ordered, but it is now 3 months later and I still have no screens.

Frustrations are part of our modern life. We depend on other people to keep their word, but often they do not. Quite often people will appear to be truly friendly, kind, and honest; but once the sale has been made, or once they have your money, or once you are locked into a contract, they change like Jekyll and Hyde. Until all people learn to be kind, to be honest, and to live in integrity, there will be tensions. Our responsibility is to accept that other people will let us down – sometimes unintentionally and sometimes purposefully. We do not need to start wars when other people disappoint us. We can bless them, or pray for them. We can accept a situation, try to change a situation, or leave the situation. These are our choices. They are our only choices if we want to bring peace into our lives and into the world.

Only a few days after getting settled into my new place, I went down to the dank basement to do a load of laundry. When I unlocked the door and stepped inside I was hit in the face with thick cigarette smoke. I assumed at first that the other tenant had been smoking in there and closed the door, trapping the smoke inside. I figured out though, that it was seeping through the unfinished walls from the top apartment. This would never do!  I have mentioned previously, my intolerance for cigarette smoke. My lungs begin to close up immediately and if I do not promptly remove myself from it, it will send me into a full blown asthma attack. 

I decided that I might be better off doing my laundry at a laundromat. This proved to be quite inconvenient, time consuming, and expensive. Even though smoking is not allowed inside laundromats, smokers stand just outside the doors indulging in their nasty habit, or they sit in their cars smoking with the windows open and the smoke pouring out of them. I have been deeply grateful that smoking bans have been instituted in public places all around the country. I find it disturbing; however, that so many people continue to smoke and an alarming number of them are children and teenagers.

After discovering the smoke in the laundry room, I began to notice it in my bedroom. This was alarming to me since I could not open the window. Turning on the ac unit only made it worse. Each day it grew stronger. I didn’t understand why it was not noticeable immediately upon moving in. I think they had recently painted the walls, which may have blocked it for a short time, but the walls were thin. The man who lived upstairs worked an afternoon/night shift and when he came home after midnight, his footsteps and voice were as loud as though he were standing in my bedroom.

After a few more days, the smoke became unbearable for me. The following Sunday night, knowing I had to be at work at 6:30 am, I attempted to sleep in a small recliner in the kitchen, near a window that I could open. After a few hours, I knew I would not be getting any sleep that way, so I drug my mattress and box springs down the 4 steps to the living room. I had signed a 1-year lease and I knew that I would have to find a way to get out of the lease and find another place to live.

A coworker had told me about a 4-plex that was about ¼ mile from work. I left on my lunch break that next day to see it. It was awful. It had not been lived in for a year. There had been a flood. It had never been cleaned and there were hundreds of spider eggs and mold everywhere. It had concrete floors. There was no bathtub and no laundry facility. I was desperate to get out of the smoke-filled duplex, knowing that if I did not, I would have ended up in an emergency room. I reluctantly took the spider infested place that was near my work and I moved in that afternoon. I called the previous landlord and explained the situation, asking if he would tear up the lease that I had signed. He was completely understanding and agreed to return my damage deposit. He was going to mail it to me at the new address, but a few days later he was walking with his wife in the gardens where I work and stopped to say hello. He went out to his car and wrote me a check and brought it back to me. 

Sometimes, it seems that the challenges just keep rolling at me fast and furiously. I have learned to roll with them. I have learned to remain centered in that place of peace within me, no matter what is going on. In this way, problems have a way of being sorted out for the highest good of all concerned. Call it what you will – divine intervention, guardian angel, staying present in the now, or simply the power of prayer – but there is no doubt in my mind that when we get out of our own way, miracles happen and they happen frequently.

Since I had arrived in Arkansas in the wee hours of dawn, in the dark, I may as well have been dropped by spaceship onto a remote planet. My old phone was annoyingly slow and did little to help me navigate my new city. I picked up area maps from the welcome center a few days after my arrival, to prevent my getting lost. 

The duplex that I had rented before leaving Wyoming seemed pleasant enough at first; but upon closer inspection, it was clearly not what I had hoped for. The original structure was probably built in the 1930’s and had later been converted. Instead of the neighboring half of the duplex being beside me, it was situated on top of me. I was on the ground floor, but there were 4 steps leading up to the bedroom. This room was conveniently large, but the indoor/outdoor carpeting had most likely not been vacuumed since its installation, probably many years earlier. There was only one bedroom window, which could not be opened because of the ac unit that was in it. The kitchen, dining area, and living room were also ample in size and they were bright with plenty of windows and wood floors; however, there were only a couple of kitchen cabinets and a miniature stove. Since I cook all of my own meals, this was a problem.

The laundry room was in the unfinished basement, meant to be shared by both tenants. It was draped with spider webs. The washing machine must have been at least 40 years old and the dryer ran much too hot. There was really no yard to speak of. The toilet had been installed too close to the wall so I had to sit sideways when using it. Thankfully, the shower had been recently updated, but I was disheartened that there was no bathtub. What surprised me most was that there was no central heat. Two space heaters had been provided, but they weren’t really adequate and I was concerned about the bill I would receive if I used them too much. It was the end of February and it was much colder in Arkansas than I had anticipated.

I am always surprised by the filth and poor condition of some of the rentals I have seen. Many landlords do not bother to clean a place before showing or renting it to the next tenant. They often have them rented to the next person even before the current one has moved out because they don’t want to lose a single day of revenue. Corporate greed has filtered down to the upper middle class who can afford to buy rental properties. 

I have owned my own home for most of my life, so I understand the constant upkeep that they require. Roofs occasionally need to be replaced. Gutters need to be kept clean and power washing often becomes necessary. Appliances wear out. Walls need to be painted and yards need to be maintained. Far too many landlords care only about their rental income, allowing the properties to fall into grievous states of disrepair. 

As a homeowner I never had the desire to rent property. Many tenants have never owned their own home and do not take care of the space they are renting. They may feel that because it doesn’t “belong” to them, they don’t need to clean it or care for it. They can be destructive and leave the landlord with a huge mess to deal with when they move out. Quite often, even those who can afford their own homes, do not take care of them. They may be gone most of the week so that they can work to pay the high mortgage payment, and they play all weekend, leaving little time that they actually spend in their homes.

I was raised with different values. I have always taken care of my things and for the homes that I have lived in, whether I owned or rented them. This is my responsibility. The truth is that no one really “owns” anything. Our very lives, and all that we have been given, the planet we live on, and even our bodies are gifts that we must appreciate and be grateful for. We help to care for our planet by first caring for our own home. When we feel gratitude for what we have, regardless how seemingly inadequate, we create the space for something better to appear.

Sometimes I ponder the many changes that I have witnessed in my lifetime, from my childhood to the present day. The advances in technology are mind boggling to one like me who had only one black and white television in my family’s living room. One area that may be less noticeable to some, is the quality of our clothing. As a child, I had to wear hand-me-downs either from my sister, who was five years older, or from family friends. My mother would buy me only one or two new outfits at the beginning of each school year. These were usually bought on lay-a-way because my parents did not have credit cards.

It is obvious to me whether or not a clothing item is of good quality. I have seen the quality of most apparel decrease significantly over the years. This morning when I put on a shirt that I had recently purchased on clearance, I noticed that the cuff on the sleeve had been sewn on askew. I have purchased a pair of socks where one sock was a good four inches longer than the other one. I had a pair of capri leggings with one leg several inches shorter than the other leg. I have seen clothing with large crooked stitches and seams that had never been pressed. Sometimes the fabric itself has flaws. Other times, the hems on skirts or dresses are uneven. 

When I notice these obvious defects in my clothing I cannot help thinking about the person who sewed them. Nearly all of our clothing is made overseas these days because the labor is so cheap and the companies are purely profit-driven. Did the cuff on my shirt get sewn on crooked because the worker had been working for too many hours and was too tired to correct her mistake? Did her supervisors expect her to meet a certain quota in her production regardless of whether her work was perfect? Was she feeling ill because she had not had enough to eat? Did she have a sick child at home?

Few people know how to sew their own clothing anymore. It is just one more way in which we have given up our ability to be self-sufficient. Clothing, like most things in our modern world, is not made to last. It is laundered in chemically derived detergents that wear them down more quickly and then dried in very hot driers, shortening the time in which they begin to show wear. With so many new clothes available in stores, old clothing is tossed away without a thought. Most people do donate unwanted clothing; however, the predominant mind set is that one should have new clothes almost continually and those made by famous designers.

I no longer have to wear hand-me-downs and I purchase better quality clothing whenever possible. Finding clothes that fit me properly and that suit my tastes is not easy. The styles that I prefer are often no longer available. I do know how to sew; but let’s just say that it is an art which comes more naturally to some than to others. It is my hope that my granddaughters’ and younger generations might bring back this mostly forgotten skill. The recent pandemic has created more interest in gardening. Perhaps more people will learn to sew as well.

If you are thinking that my getting to Arkansas was my biggest challenge and that everything has fallen into place, you would be mistaken. The challenges continue to roll in, one right after the other. It feels as though my head is being pushed under water and I pop up to get a breath of fresh air; but I immediately get plunged back under again. 

I have a friend who says she could never do what I have done. Not many people my age (68) I suppose, up and relocate to a place they have never been. When I left Colorado in 1999, I was 47. Friends at that time told me I was “brave’, but it has nothing to do with bravery. I am like a gypsy moving from place to place – endlessly. I have started over more times than I can count, which makes no sense because I am a home-body. I want nothing more than to be like a tree, to anchor myself to one spot and stay there. I have wanted to plant trees and flowers and asparagus, to be there year after year to watch them grow. Mother/Father/God has had other plans for me. It is “thy will – not my will.” Some days I feel as though I am truly done. I just cannot deal with one more thing. These experiences have brought me wisdom, but that wisdom has come at a high price. That wisdom has come out of spending so many years alone, even when I would have gladly welcomed companionship.

I cannot help wondering if life may get a little easier in those years that lie in front of me. It might be one year, or five years, or possibly, but not likely, another fifteen years before I complete this current incarnation. Even if my own life looks a little brighter in the future, I am living on a planet with a future that looks quite dim. For this reason I do not live for a future that has not arrived. I know that yesterday is gone. I am here NOW. At this moment, as I am writing this, with my cat resting peacefully against my legs, all is well.

The 1,100 mile journey from Wheatland, Wyoming to Hot Springs, Arkansas, according to Google Maps, was only supposed to take a little more than 17 hours. It had me driving partway through Nebraska and then heading down south. I wanted to avoid snow and freezing temperatures so I drove south through part of Colorado before heading east through Kansas. Knowing that I would not be able to drive the whole 17 hours without a break, I stopped at a Super 8 hotel in Goodland, Kansas. My room had a recliner, as well as a bed, so it appeared as though everything was going well.

I was back on the road by 7:30 am, believing that I would make it to Hot Springs by late afternoon. Certainly I would make it there before dark. When I reached Tulsa, Oklahoma; however, I must have missed a turn somewhere. I was trying to make my way to I-40. I took some smaller highways that looked on my map like they would still get me to my destination. I elected to take Highway 7 because it looked to be the most direct route. I learned later, that was a big mistake. By this time it was very late and very dark. I stopped and slept in my truck for a couple of hours near Fayetteville; then I drove -and drove and drove – for hours in the middle of the night on a narrow, twisting, curving road for miles and miles. The fact that most of the truckers were pulled over and sleeping, was my saving grace, because I could go very slow without worrying about being run off the road. I have night blindness and the road was barely visible, but for the white lines that kept me on it. 

It turns out that Highway 7 cuts right through the mountains. Smarter people take I-40 to Little Rock, over-shooting Hot Springs by a little, and then backtrack to the west in order to avoid the mountains. Fortunately, I was coming in just behind a storm that dumped about 10 inches of snow in the area. Hot Springs normally has only 2” or 3” of snow in a year. I am sure that Highway 7 is a beautiful drive as long as you aren’t in a hurry, but I was dead tired and driving in the dark. I was not able to enjoy or to appreciate the beautiful scenery.

At long last, I arrived at my rented apartment at 6:15 am. I had been on the road for nearly 24 hours. The garbage collectors were already moving up and down the streets collecting trash. When I turned off my truck I heard, within minutes, the cheerful singing of a wren as though it was welcoming me to Arkansas. I wanted nothing more than to lay down on my bed and sleep, but I had to wait two hours for the landlord to come and let me in. The 17 hour drive turned out for me to be 43 hours (including the one short night in the hotel)!

Some people enjoy taking road trips. I am not one of them. Road trips, in my mind, are like automobiles. They are a necessary evil in our society, designed to get you from point A to point B. Whenever possible, I will choose walking or riding a bicycle over driving, until such time as I can learn to get around by apparating, which was the more sophisticated means of travel employed by Harry Potter. I am grateful to have arrived in Arkansas safe and sound; however, and quite happy that I did not need to travel by way of a covered wagon.