Paul Gauguin: Change of Residence, from the Suite of Late Wood-Block Prints (1899)

" … [the extroverted ones would always] stare down at someone else's shoes."

We always kept in mind that our Exile would end. The Muse worked for one of the Department of Energy's national laboratories, so she was surrounded by federal government employees. If anything uniquely characterizes a federal employee, they can always definitively state their retirement date. It seemed uncanny. While in some places, people might chat about various topics at parties; retirement always came up in DC. Further, everyone knew how many points they'd earned and how many they had left to earn before they could leave. The Muse became aware, if only through continual reminders, that her tenure, too, would one day end. She might exert more influence over those terms and conditions than our Exile had thus far allowed. After six years of Exile, we were still renters, paying twice what our mortgage cost without gaining any future advantage.

She wrangled a transfer to her lab's home office in Colorado, where real estate seemed more affordable. The lab would pick up the tab for moving and put us up in transition housing until we could find a place to buy. We made a couple of preliminary visits to scope out the real estate market, which was tightening. That last winter in Takoma Park was difficult. We lost my long-time cat and confident, Crash, to old age, burying him in one of the garden beds I'd improved during our tenure on Willow. People The Muse had been working with since she'd started her Exile began disappearing. Some moved to Colorado. Others just moved on. We were becoming more aware of our fleeting venue. My first grandson was born. A step-grandson contracted a nasty cancer. We were ultimately too far away from home.

We left in the Spring, arriving after the Colorado winter had fled. Our transition housing turned out to be a Barbie and Ken condo community overlooking much of the Platte Valley, with Denver in the far background. Our condo was typically bare-bones, featuring a forty-watt EZ Bake oven and extremely uncomfortable furniture. It would serve as strong motivation to find some place more permanent to live. The Muse met a realtor she liked at an open house, and he started sending us leads. We'd arrived about two years late, it seemed. Seven thousand people were showing up in Denver each month by then, and every one of them was looking for reasonably priced housing. The search seemed especially daunting because Denver's not precisely the most beautiful city in the country. Much of it might as well be in Kansas. It overlooks the grand Front Range, but it's built on a dry scrub plain. The most decent neighborhoods were tenaciously suburban, with long commutes from where The Muse would be working.

I lost faith and began suggesting that we move into the derelict trailer park near The Muse's lab. She held faith and continued searching. The lab agreed to extend our stay in the Bardie and Ken Nightmare Condo for another month, then two. We happened upon the place we bought. The Muse confessed that it had been on the first list our realtor had sent, but she'd edited it out because it came with an HOA, a Home Owner's Agreement delineating specific rules everyone in the development needed to abide by. She couldn't imagine me ever agreeing to sign such a document, and I wouldn't have until after spending the better part of three months looking at property I either couldn't afford or would never consent to buy. The place was eight minutes from The Muse's lab. It was in a development that had set aside much of its land to preserve elk habitat. It was up on top of the first tier of Rocky Mountain foothills, far above the windy weed patch surrounding Denver. Further, we could afford this place.

We deemed it the Villa Vatta Schmaltz High, if only because it sat just above eight thousand feet above sea level. It featured a deck and master bedroom with forty-mile views up The Front Range. Just down the street, we could see an HO-scale Denver in the distance, a half-hour's drive and as good as a thousand miles away. This would be the venue where we would play out the second half of our Exile. We would be three hours closer to home by air and could even drive there in two days. Further, The Muse's family in South Dakota was only a long day's drive northeast, so we seemed better situated than we had been back in Takoma Park. We'd live in Genesee Village, a development within the sprawling city of Golden, Colorado, home to The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (The Muse's employer) and The Colorado School of Mimes, or so I declared. The School of MINES featured students who were so introverted that they seemed like mimes to me: preverbal. You could always tell which were the extroverted ones because they'd stare down at someone else's shoes.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Exiled, #PureSchmaltz