Jul 14

Jul 14 I Miss Cooking, Dammit.

I don’t miss the house we lived in for 18 years, I don’t miss the stunning view of silos and sail boats and I don’t miss our gorgeous flower gardens.

I MISS COOKING.

The whirlwind of June, which started quietly enough in Charleston, with the decision to continue hunkering down for at least another month, was disrupted spectacularly by a real estate bubble — in Vermont a thing as rare as a shiny, clean car or your neighborhood Whole Foods.

We listed the house and it sold in a week to a couple from California who had never been it.

We were thrilled.

We were confused.

We were shocked, dismayed and… suddenly no longer wondering when to read the next chapter of that novel, or when to take another walk. Our long, languorous days of quarantine came to an abrupt halt.

With signature Zulkoski rashness and hubris, we agreed to an impossible closing date and luckily secured the only available mover for 5 days hence. The decision was made that I should fly home, the idea of which, even a day earlier, was as preposterous as sprouting my own wings to complete the journey. Being on a plane, going through all the usual motions at the airport felt familiar, reassuring and yet, very weird. Like the dog you’ve loved for years suddenly starting to talk.

My heart swelled in its usual Grinch-like manner when the nearly empty plane approached Burlington, the Champlain valley stretched out below in its verdant magnificence, the Lake a sparkling blue to rival any sapphire. I walked into our house on the hill, all at once familiar and strange, and from then on did not stop moving except to sleep, for the next 20 days.

Because she had been in lockdown for too long and because she is very good at being a friend, Cindy drove up to VT that very day, a Friday, and we went to work. Labeling, tagging, moving, sorting, consolidating — everything we could do before the movers arrived on Tuesday morning. A decision made on every object in the house; some of those decisions, very tough.

Macaroni necklaces, middle school book reports, dozens of SACAC trophies, beloved stuffed animals — all chucked into the maw of a great black-plastic beast, which ate up beloved memories made by beloved children. “Its not their childhood, its only stuff I’m throwing away’ became my mantra. Then with a might swing, the garbage bag would be unceremoniously tossed into a dumpster. Every heaving motion up and over the top punctuated with a heartfelt and angry fuck! Sentimental fools suffer greatly in this phase of moving and I was as wretched a soul as any.

That unmoored, kicked-in-the-gut feeling was made all the more unsettling by Covid, of course, but the other tiny hiccup in our plan… After the closing, where exactly were we going to live? For the last 2-plus years I had looked at every single house on the market in our part of Vermont that met our unwavering, but short list of requirements: on the Lake, not too big, not too far from the airport, and of course, safe for pets. Not easy to find – houses on the lake are either giant McMansions or tiny un-winterized camps where residents often live cheek by jowl.

Darling Husband, himself feeling unmoored, alone in the house in Charleston concocted a brilliant plan — rentals were impossible to find in Vermont but maybe, just maybe we could stay at Basin Harbor Club, that venerable, 100 year old Catskillesque resort, down the lake a bit. In other seasons the cost would be prohibitive, but this year…

Well, the rest is history. A chapter in Zulkoski lore that will go down as ‘that Summer Mom & Dad lived at Basin Harbor’. We have been happily ensconced in our tiny nubbin of a cabin, all 600 square feet of it, for 3 weeks now.

No one loves it more than Gillian, who in her free-ranging travels beguiles guests and staff indiscriminately. Said the wizened old codger: “I’ve been coming here since I was a kid, I have never seen a cat here before”.

So, we live at a resort. Just like when Howard Hughes lived at The Beverly Hills Hotel. No, actually nothing like that. But we are in a peculiar state of suspended animation and all that grueling work that defined June came to a grinding halt in July. The reliable rhythm of the days needs to be cultivated and teased out now. Besides dog walking and breakfast the days are without form (but still, thank god have some function). Cooking, never drudgery for me, provided the reliable beats — even during Covid days. But here, with nothing but a teeny microwave and dorm-sized fridge — cooking is just a happy memory and I miss it.

So the dog days of summer pass with long walks in the woods and swims in the Lake. And… now I console myself with planning a kitchen renovation instead of cooking in one. Yes, the real estate gods smiled down on us and we have a house under contract that is on the Lake, not too big, not too far from the airport, and of course, is safe for pets. Lucky, lucky, lucky.