Sometimes it’s a man calling a feral cat. “Fritz!” Wait a beat, “Fritz!” for ten minutes or so. One night it is a different male voice a little further down the road shouting something unintelligible and later, a barking dog. Two plus two says he was calling the dog, found it, and hooked it up to the yard tether.

On another night, I am alarmed by something rustling fiercely among the big fig leaves outside our bedroom. I pat Bob’s arm, but he is deeply asleep and does not wake.

In the morning, I tell him I heard something as big as a bear in the fig tree, but we agree it was probably a trash panda or a deer. Then I fold myself into his shape and we lay, warm beneath the covers, breathing cool morning air, thinking about nothing but the feel of our bodies.

We are both a part of and impartial to the world around us. We are elements within a greater context, like a crossed “t” on a handwritten page, one letter out of many, isolated components of a greater whole.

Later, I look for ripe figs but find only remnants.

The next morning, I pull on a sweatshirt and take my half cup of decaf to the back porch to welcome the day. The high whine of a motorcycle traveling way faster than the 45-mile-per-hour limit obliterates the morning stillness. I stiffen against the sound, thinking, That guy is gonna end up killing someone, but by the time I settle into my rocking chair, his noise is a distant buzz.

It was just a sound, I tell myself. Not to be judged or reacted to, but noticed and dismissed along with everything else. Along with the baby bird chirps, the damp railings, and the little squirrel giving me side takes from a crepe myrtle. Perhaps the squirrel is deciding whether to react to my movements or dismiss me.

As a child, I learned to use a critical eye while watching my brothers play. My mother dubbed me “her centurion,” her guard in the doorway ready to sound an alert should kids’ play turn dangerous as it often did. Those boys. Playing wilder and rougher until someone got hurt. I leaned into her praise, embracing my role with relish. I would catch the mayhem in its first syllable before anyone got hurt.

In my thirties, I sought professional help. I would sit with a compassionate woman in her intentionally unremarkable therapy room and talk about my problems and my dreams. She taught me, among other things, the difference between observation and judgment, and I vowed to, one day, completely shed my sentry cape. So this has been my life’s work: to detach. To sense, accept, and be at peace with everything the world sends my way.

I look up and the squirrel is gone.

Bob and I had been gone all week visiting my brother, James, in Massachusetts for his birthday. I had just turned 70 and Jamie was turning 59.

The three of us spent two nights on South Yarmouth in the wake of Hurricane Beryl. We enjoyed some refreshing barefoot beach time and James went for a short swim.

And then James drove us inland to celebrate his birthday with pizza, cake, and ice cream at his new home outside of Boston where we were joined by his stepdaughter and her family.

Christina and Lou’s seven kids bounced around Jamie’s lush lawn, taking turns on the swing between bites of pizza at the picnic table. No one threw up.

This was the best pizza I’d eaten in years. It had a thin, slightly salty, crispy, yet foldable crust, with blackened dough blisters, a spicy sauce, and not too much cheese. In other words, it was New York style pizza like we used to get on our birthdays from Freddie’s in West Long Branch, New Jersey.

No birthday is complete without cake and ice cream, so we did that, too.

~*~

Bob and I returned home to discover deer tracks in the garden. They had taken out a pepper plant and decimated the edamame. I tightened the clothesline I’d strung above the four-foot livestock fence in a lame attempt to fend off another garden attack, made dinner, and we went to bed and fell asleep wondering how we were going to solve our deer problem.

Bob found her the next morning, a lactating doe that had been hit by a Ford truck during the night. Problem solved. We didn’t take her picture out of respect for the dead. After picking the big plastic “R” and other truck parts out of the grass, we went inside and waited for the clean up crew.

Soon enough the vultures began to arrive. Lyle and Carrie had watched a breeding pair of Black vultures raise two chicks at their place half a mile away and we were pretty sure a group of four who were nearly always together were the same family. We were thrilled to have them at our place and be able to share our friends’ experience.

About three days in, the intermittent whiff of rot began spoiling our summer afternoon spa time. But it was short-lived—in this heat, roadkill decomposes at an accelerated pace—and a couple of days later we resumed our refreshing cold water (88°) soaks.

Although the family of four birds were the same size, we could tell the youngsters from their parents by the baby fluff around their heads and necks.

I confess that Black vultures are among my top three favorite birds along with Great blue herons and Carolina wrens.

Unlike other birds, vultures spend a lot of time standing around. They don’t have to flit about chasing bugs or searching for seeds, worrying about getting picked off by cats and hawks. Vultures are so big, they don’t worry about much of anything. They waddled up near the garden to watch Bob work, as interested in us as we were in them.

We learned that when vultures blink, they look like sharks.

Bob and I were struck by their affection towards each other and were reminded of our time in Massachusetts with Jamie and family.

Family is where you find it. Sometimes you might have to board an airplane to see them. Sometimes family comes to you after a deer gets hit on the Moncure Pittsboro Road. Either way, families make life more interesting by reminding us that we were all young once and that we are all hurtling through space on the same planet, doing our best to stay happy and fed.

But, wouldn’t you know it, when I walked back into our house I saw them with terrible clarity and decided that something must be done. And Bob, bless his heart, gave me total support. Never mind that we’d lived with what previous tenants thought was cute for fourteen years, our walls now desperately needed a makeover.

Chaos followed. Not immediately. First we had to find a contractor because we sure as heck weren’t going to do the painting ourselves. The first guy said he’d get to us in a few months, then couldn’t. The second painter didn’t pan out either. But the third one did—I know, this is starting to sound like a fairy tale—and soon we were taking all the art off the walls and looking for places to hide the knick knacks.

As for the colors, we’d already spent months taping painted poster board samples to our walls until we picked five that worked for us. I’m not gonna lie, we went for bright knowing full well that we were bucking the current trend towards neutrals.

Our friends grasped their hands when we showed them our paint strips. Some came right out and said, “I couldn’t live with those colors,” while others wished us well before retreating to the comfort of their reasonable decor.

But we were undeterred. We wanted bright and we weren’t choosy about where we got our ideas. For example, a scene from “The Bear” inspired our blue kitchen. Never mind that it was one of Carmy’s nightmares.

We thought the deep blue “Flyway” would look great against our warm cabinets.

Our newly-hired crew of professionals patched drywall goofs and door dings, painted over the wallpaper, and were finished in two days.

No more falling asleep while doing laundry. That “Osage Orange” will keep us on our toes, blood pumping.

I spend most of my indoor time bouncing between kitchen and desk so the colors we chose for those two rooms had to get along. The blue and brown remind me of my childhood parakeet sitting on the curtain rod in my bedroom, his blue feathers contrasting nicely against the wood paneling.

After many failed greens, we picked “Teddy,” which matches our morning coffee. Brown was Carrie’s idea because we had a lot of framed art on the wall and she said brown wouldn’t fight with everything else. And it’s a bright room, windows facing south, so we knew it could handle the dark color.

We had the orange wrap around the outside of our dining room on the kitchen side, and painted the interior “Lemon Twist.”

I can’t think of a better color for dining than the color of a good macaroni and cheese. Makes me hungry just looking at it!

We didn’t have to think too hard before picking “Peri Wink” for the living room, a color that plays nice with the greenery of Bob’s orchids.

Here is the other side of our living room with its double-sided gas hearth and wood mantle. What you won’t see here is all the knick knacks because I only chose a few to display and left the rest in a cooler nested in towels.

We wrapped the entrance from the living room to the dining room in periwinkle, another nod to my childhood because these are the colors I repainted my bedroom when I was about twelve years old.

Our raspberry pink hall also got a makeover. I thought yellow would help lighten it up.

We’ve been having a whale of a time rifling through our art collection picking and hanging. One of my favorites is “Wired Wanderings: A Quest for Identity” by Robyne Plaga in back entrance. Not only does it pick up the blue from the other side of the hall, but we find the robot’s expression—a mix of elation and despair—totally relatable.

“It’s like living in a bag of Peanut M&M’s,” I said to Bob after the painters left. And that’s okay. We like Peanut M&M’s. At our age, we need bright colors to pep us up and thanks to Kathryn, we’ve got them. Also, thank you to all our friends who weighed in and supported us along this confusing journey.

A hot tub was not on our radar until we made plans to get the back deck resurfaced. I remembered how much we enjoyed the built-in tub at our place in Virginia, so I thought we could extend the deck and add a spa. Bob liked the idea and our friends with hot tubs said we wouldn’t regret it.

We went with Ted’s recommendation and chose the Aria, a five-seater Freshwater Salt System Spa with pulsating jets and a triple stream fountain. The price tag was staggering, but we had the money and figured it would help ease our aches and pains for the next twenty years or so.

We decided to name it Sweetwater in honor of the crumbling tree house in our back yard where I used to sit and relax before it became unsafe.

But first, we had to get a concrete pad thick enough to support 4,600 pounds—the estimated weight of the tub, the water, and five passengers.

We had them throw in a sidewalk to the garage because, why not? (It also made the concrete load large enough to be viable.) It’ll keep our shoes from picking up grass clippings and dragging them into our cars.

A few weeks later, we watched four guys wrestle the tub from their truck onto the pad that Bob (aka “Project Manager”) had measured and marked with blue tape for the precise location.

And then Bob, aka “Spa Boy”, filled it with water. He tests the water nearly every day and is continually tweaking the salt, pH, total alkalinity, chlorine, and who knows what else.

After everything was in place, Martin and Pedro replaced our back porch flooring and added a step-down deck just six paces from our back door. I’m not going to lie, those six steps can be excruciating in the cold. But then we soak in that 100° water and gaze at the sky or make idle conversation until our bones are glowing.

I also picked up a water toy at the PTA Thrift Store in Pittsboro. We named him Hector. Bob pointed out that Hector is not a true octopus because he only has six legs.

We usually visit Sweetwater after dinner and TV—no more climbing into a chilly bed with frosty bones. We watch the planes, pick out constellations, and sometimes bathe in moonlight or catch glimpses of shooting stars. Occasionally, we have our morning coffee out there and watch the birds start the day.

So yeah, our new spa was a splurge, but it has already been life-changing. Our muscles and joints feel exceptionally supple, we sleep better, and winter has become bearable. No regrets here.

So I stay inside, sprawled across an overstuffed chair with my daily-gibberish notebook and a purple pen.

We’ve hired Martin and his brother, Pedro, to do some repairs here at Trouts Farm. They’d re-sided Bob and Torrey’s aging shed and had been trimming our front ditch all summer, so we knew they were talented and easy to work with.

They began with the rotting pole barn that shelters our riding mower, garden inputs, and our two, blue Teslas. Can’t have the barn falling down on our cars, can we?

They got right to work replacing the bad wood, sistering on new supports, and cutting away tree branches that brushed up against the roof.

When all was structurally sound, they covered the roof and outside walls in blue metal. “To match your cars,” Martin said, after I named the color. “Yes!” I said, “And someday, the house.”

We move our cars out of the pole barn during the day to give the guys room to work.

They also fixed the ceiling in the work room. No more looking up for snakes before entering the work room. All this in less than a week.

In between yard jobs—they’re still blowing leaves and spreading mulch for other clients—Pedro and Martin re-floored our front porch.

Now we have a floor of nice new, pressure-treated wood which will cure for several months before they come back and stain it.

And then they started on our mammoth back porch.

When Pedro and Martin pulled the decking off, they learned that only the posts on either end went straight into the ground. The interior posts rested atop the deck itself, so they fixed that by installing new posts that reach from dirt to roof.

It made my heart soar to see the wad of green Astroturf in the discard pile.

In 2022, we got new interior floors and a fabulous master bath (Thanks Trip, Jerry, and Ron!) This year we got an upgraded garage and new porch flooring. Merry Christmas to us!

Day after day, Bob and I harvest, cook, mow, trim, and weed together. This is what our dual retirement looks like: morning workouts, daily trips to the garden, languid afternoons, dinner on the back porch, an hour of Roku entertainment, showers in our magnificent new bathroom, and then to bed with our books.

It is a gorgeous day—the humidity is way down to 55—but by 11:00, my thoughts about going for a walk have evaporated. The A/C powered into our Sunday morning silence at 7:30, and Bob and I have already pulled in two and a half pounds of figs. We also brought in a respectable number of cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes.

I’m sitting on the back porch with my pink notebook, thinking of all the things I don’t want to do. I keep telling myself, “You don’t have to do anything; it’s Sunday,” and, “You’re retired! Go lay in the hammock.”

At dinner last night, when I announced, “Tomorrow’s my day off,” Bob rocked back in his chair and said, “Sure.”

“Just you wait and see,” I said.

So, I will sit and write until I begin to sweat, and then I will do some yoga, roast the pimentos and skin and deseed the tomatoes. I will kill some fire ants underneath our chestnut tree with the hot tomato water. These are easy things, everyday things, like brushing my teeth. Not at all a Sunday Day Off Violation.

What I won’t do, is wash the bedroom windows, even though I saw their cloudiness when I opened the blinds before climbing back into bed this morning. My Suzy Homemaker voice whispered, But these are the last ones—you’ve done all the others—and you have all day.

Today I will resist that bad little voice. Today I will play, whatever that looks like. I’ve got something to prove. I’ll lay in the hammock and talk on the phone. I may take out my sketch pad or read another chapter of The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek.

Bob busies himself with the orchids, then comes outside to say hello. I smile up from my notebook scribbles, hoping he’s proud of me for sitting here under the shade of the crepe myrtle in my cotton shift this far into the day. He harvests sweet pears, makes himself something to eat, washes dishes, plays some Wingspan, then does some reading. Later, he will sugar the pickles that he soaked in vinegar overnight and air fry a pound of teriyaki tofu.

When the temperature reaches 85°, I retreat inside to do tomatoes and peppers. I return to my rocking chair an hour later with soup and cheese toast. I admire the neon light shining through the myrtle leaves and the crisp, dark green of the forest fringe beyond. I put down my bowl and plate and stare at a Ruby Throat on his perch, guarding the hummingbird feeder. Time is paralyzed, swollen and ripe, hanging like a fat, red fig.

Of course, I immediately turned to Bob for help booking flights and lodging, something he happily takes on any time we go anywhere. After landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport, we pulled our suitcases over to the side so Bob could decide how best to get into Manhattan.

Ultimately, we rode the AirTrain to the E Train, a frugal and adventurous choice that bolstered my New Yorker persona.

We stepped off at the Port Authority exit and after we dragged our suitcases past broken escalators and up to the gum-encrusted sidewalk, Bob asked me to pose beside Ralph Kramden, the fictional bus driver of fifties sitcom fame.

Remember The Honeymooners? It was one of a few shows that met my Mom and Dad’s approval. Back then, families watched television together and, at least in my family, kids were forbidden to turn on the TV at any other time.

It was a short walk to our hotel. The street smelled of diesel fuel and pot, with undertones of freshly-baked bread. Some corners reeked of cotton candy. Pizza smells wafted from open doorways and food carts. We put away our clothes and looked down at the city from our room on the 30th floor of the Hampton Inn Manhattan/Times Square Central.

It was still early, so we took our cameras down to Times Square.

The Lion King is still showing at the Minskoff, where cousin Frank recently retired as prop manager.

Manhattan’s streets are a cacophony of construction, traffic, flashing billboards, food trucks, and pedestrians.

Plenty of color, lots of ways for people to lighten our wallets.

We funneled into a crowd watching a man flip himself over backwards with a mere bend of his knee.

Sorry. Had to include this one.

NYPD was everywhere, and I must admit that at least once, I kept pace with them to make myself feel less vulnerable. I was hoping to see an officer on horseback, but so far have not run into any.

Finally, we arrive at my favorite photo from our first day in New York City: sunlit London Pales at Bryant Park. As always, it was Bob who thought to make this a destination.

Truth be told, he was interested in trying out what’s been touted as “the most luxurious public bathroom in all of New York City,” willing to stand in line until the plastic-gloved lady beckoned.

“How was it?” I asked when he emerged. “Gritty and smelled like piss,” Bob said, “A lot prettier on the outside.” And that’s what we came here for, to get the real flavor of New York City. Not what you see in the movies, nothing like little Pittsboro, New York is at once coarse and stinky and grand.

This week—thanks to the generosity of our friend, Lyle, who has secured a gorgeous beach house in Placencia—we will revisit our old haunts for the first time since 1998.

To prepare, we have been reading the journal I kept while managing a remote jungle lodge in the Cayo district. Mountain Equestrian Trails specialized in horseback riding tours to pristine swimming holes, Mayan ruins, and stalagmite caves with ancient pottery, so there was plenty to write about during the fourteen months we ran the lodge.

Here is an excerpt from a piece we published on our website in the early days of our adventure:

Our life in Belize is good and the pace of life is refreshingly slow. The people here are friendly, mind their own business and have very few expectations. We rarely hear anyone blame someone or something else for their position in life. Since nobody owns very much, there is nothing to insure or buy alarm systems for. People spend a fair amount of time working with and talking with their families. Most Belizeans don’t work outside the home. They have a simple, easily maintained lifestyle – with lots of time to enjoy family, friends and nature. Homes are built from material available in the forest. No one has a mortgage. Few Belizeans own vehicles, which eliminates the need for car payments, insurance and gasoline. Family milpas (gardens) are common and therefore the grocery bills are low.

Read more here.

Outside, between the swish of wet tires, I hear only a sliver of insects hissing lazily in the cool of morning. A jet soars into the soundscape, then trails off. It is followed by a far-off rooster, the plop of water sliding from our metal roof, and finally, the laugh of a red-bellied woodpecker.

We hear the outside world from inside our mothers’ wombs, while sleeping, and after all other senses have lost their grip, we hear from our deathbeds.

I call Bob, who has woken to ants on the seventh floor of a Hampton Inn somewhere west of here. I describe my sounds and imagine him straining to hear what I hear from so far away. I promise myself that he will soon join me in idle listening. He reads me the weather forecast and solves the Wordle in two tries, beating the bot. And he tells me he will retire in thirty-three weeks, just in time for my sixty-ninth birthday.

It seemed silly to drive through the rain to sit inside, so Bob worked another day at home as it poured outside. Then, just before dinner, the power went down. We ate by flashlight and went to bed early, but woke when the room exploded in sharp light. When daylight came the following morning, we went around the back of the house to find our WiFi junction box gaping open, its contents char black and the lid lying fifteen feet away.

Fine, we thought. Bob called a restaurant in Kitty Hawk and learned they still had power. But what to do with the thawing contents of our two freezers? We sat tight all morning, willing the Duke crews to plug us back in, before deciding to load up as much food would fit in the Volt and leave the rest to fate.

We arrived at dusk to witness a magnificent post-storm sky. We’d made it! En route, we learned that our power back home had been restored. Our food was secure. The gods were smiling at us.

We celebrate Bob’s birthday with a regenerative week at the shore every year. Last year, my mother died a few days into our beach week, so we cut it short and flew north for her funeral. Bob worked hellishly long days for all but the last bit of our vacation the previous year. This year he again brought a backlog of audit reports that simply must get done.

Honestly, I don’t know how that man sleeps. Indeed, he often lays awake beside me, turning his workload over and over, helpless to quiet his brain.

This unsettling vacation trend will end soon, I promise. Bob’s retirement is near; how near, I dare not say.

This morning we shouldered our cameras and strolled up the beach, a bit of post-retirement practice if you will.

Like the other off-season tourists, we let the water lap our calves, its first chill warming quickly. We watched the tiny sanderlings, and the larger-than-you’d-think seagulls mingle, plucking breakfast from the wet sand as the tide rose. Finally, we climbed through the deeper sand, past crab lairs, and towards the path between dunes that would take us to our street.

For breakfast, I made a salad with lettuce and peppers from our garden, and Bob put together a couple of cold-cut sandwiches on toasted asiago bread. Then he opened his laptop and got to work.