Thursday, September 24, 2015
Tomorrow I go to Istanbul for four days and nights. My Swiss friend, Max Gfeller, is joining me, and he knows the city well. I was there with Bill and Max (they were colleagues at Swiss Bank Corporation) almost two decades ago and liked it then. The city is vital and teeming, so I am looking forward to the change.
The last few weeks have been filled with work related to the renovations in the house. This morning, the workmen came to install the additional heating and air conditioning units, a job they'll complete tomorrow. Next Thursday, a workman will come to install the awning on the terrace. And the following Monday, October 5, the work necessary to create a full bath and adjoining room out of the attic begins.
The break could not be coming at a better moment: I am sick of thinking about home projects. I find I am not very practical, in the sense of knowing much about what makes modern homes comfortable. For example: earlier this week, the bathroom drain became too clogged to be delivered of its contents with the French equivalent of Drano. --Fortunately, Chantal had a plunger. The fixture in the walk-in closet stopped working yesterday, making knowing where to find what you want to wear difficult. --Fortunately Pierre (the man installing the central heating), fixed it for me while he was here this afternoon. A woman alone with a large house, I am far from handy: it's all very humbling.
Living in the countryside you need to be adept at home repair, as well as technologically savvy. My phone service has gone dead and I am not now or ever have been a Microsoft employee. After an hour on the telephone with technical service for my phone carrier, the woman at the other end of the line just decided to send me a new modem.
I have done my best to understand all the details of the bathroom design Chantal has made for me, but I can't grasp them all. There is a difference between having a certain taste in the decor of rooms and knowing how to adapt the elements of that particular taste to the realities of a space. I possess the former but not the latter. Chantal has that practical sense --it's why she could run a business installing custom-made swimming pools. I'm, as they say in French, a 'nul' --a 'zero', as I told my contractor. He ought, I made sure he understood, consult Chantal with respect to decisions regarding any of the practicalities incumbent on creating a living and bathing area in the attic.
I am suddenly aware that all my knowledge; all the skills I honed in college and law school, won't help me unstop a bathtub clogged with dog hair. (Someone more practical than I am would not have given Beau a bath in the bathtub in the first place, but done it outside.)
Is there something about growing older and creating a home in later life that is different from doing it when younger? Or is it that, living alone in a country where the language is not the one in which I was taught and trained, the limitations of my knowledge are more glaringly evident? I love living in the Minervois, happily walking Beau along paths where I meet almost no one, and when I do, they say "Good day". The flip side of that is an awareness that shifting from the thoroughly urban environment of Manhattan to the countryside requires either an attitude adjustment --It can't get done this week, but eventually it will get done; or, a bloody-mindedness at odds with the very reasons for being in the countryside in the first place.
I have worked very, very hard these almost five months in the Minervois, and my "tour" here is almost over. Having taken the time to recruit the right personnel and had the good luck to realize a valued friend has the skills to assure the project's satisfactory completion and wants the job, I think I'm in pretty good shape.
Tip-toeing around the workmen who have invaded the house, though, I realize "I have got to get out of Caunes."
There's more to life than home improvement, as I think Istanbul will remind me.
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