It’s the end of May, my favorite month. It always begins the same way, in various shades of brown and gray and then it always ends in a lush canopy of verdant green. Tonight I needed to drive and clear my head. I went north to a place filled with memories of summer sweetness, especially that first summer I spent there, a summer that in my memory was perfect. I’ve written about it before (here) This was the summer that I was invited to my friend Toni’s house for the first time. I’ve written about her shop and how magical it was. Now, I’m going to tell you about her house on the mountain in a place I know like the back of my hand because I’ve been driving those roads since I was a teenager.

Tonight, that’s where I went. I needed a place where my heart felt lighter, a place where the weight of life had yet to descend upon my shoulders, a place where I was unfettered. As I write this I’m realizing that Toni was in a phase of life where she felt anything but free. She had arrived at this house about ten years prior after leaving a career that had taken her to New York, San Francisco, and Chicago to open an eclectic shop in Woodstock called Arjuna. Entering her house was transcendent of time and space all together. There was a sense of quiet and peace in her home that I’d not experienced anywhere else. Light moved across the front windows in golden streams. The house was built in the 1830s and it needed a ton of work. It was drafty in the winter, the basement was damp. It had last been decorated in the 1950’s when it was gifted to the woman whom Toni was caretaking the house for. Toni had integrated her collection of global antiques and treasure into its mid-century modern decor which gave it a very organic, eclectic texture. In short, I loved it. I loved the stacks of books on the stairs, I loved the mid century furniture that was at that point tired and not super comfortable. I used to sit on a carved African birthing stool by the massive field stone fireplace. I loved the hand thrown pottery, I loved the fiber art on the walls, I loved the painted wide plank floors, I loved the area lamps with dark shades that threw the warmth of incandescent bulbs. What I loved most about this house though was Toni and how she filled it with her essence.

Toni was in her independent era. She had had at least two, maybe three, previous marriages. The first half of her adult life had consisted of professional photography, African art collecting and gallery curating, and dealing in ancient beads. Anytime I’d pick up an object or a piece of jewelry she’d tell me its origin story and about her travels in that place. This is how I learned about places like Morocco, India, Tibet, Bali, Java, Thailand, Mexico, and Nepal. Toni was my gateway to far off places, to culture, to the intangible feeling of wanting to taste those places. I started going there to help take care of her dogs and to help with gardening. Soon I started stopping by in the evenings after the store had closed. She’d make dinner, light a fire, tell stories. Sometimes we’d go out and lay on hammocks under the stars. Up there, on her hill in South Woodstock, we still had dark skies. I don’t know if that’s still the case. At one point I started visiting on my weekends home from college and we’d do what we called “a day.” I’d show up in the morning and we’d spend the entire day going through her vast closets. I’d hold something up and it was either a yes or a no. I’d put away all the Yes items and bag the No items. I’d get to go through the No items and take whatever I wanted. The rest of the No items got donated. My wardrobe became much more interesting after we started doing this ritual a few times a year.

I’d house sit for Toni when she went on buying trips to NY for the shop or when she went to Italy with friends. One day we took the dogs for a walk down the road to a little cabin just off the dirt road. It was completely off grid. No running water. Perched on the edge of the road just above a brook. It had two rooms and a wood stove. An old man had lived in it for decades. I can’t remember he was still living there when Toni moved to the hill but after he died the property owner where Toni lived gave her the go ahead to clean it out. She had painted the floor green, her favorite color, outfitted it with lights after someone wired it for electricity, and set it up as her beading studio. I got to go there occasionally and make necklaces for the shop. I don’t know if they ever sold.

I haven’t yet gotten to the property that surrounded this old house. Land. Lots and lots of land. Hundreds of acres all in trust to preserve them. I can’t remember how much exactly but it was a conglomeration of fields, woods, hills, ponds, another house on the property which was also stuck in the past (I loved that one too), and views like you wound’t believe. Up behind Toni’s house there was a hayfield that from the right angle looked as though it continued up into the sky. At the top of this hayfield was a copse of some of the biggest white birch trees I’d ever seen. They were stunning. They were either planted decades ago or selectively left when the area had last been logged, also probably in the fifties or sixties. This is the type of property that’s lusciously quiet. You do not hear any murmurings of traffic, big roads, or people. In short it was heaven up there.

I have so many cherished moments with Toni on her hillside home of eclectic chaos. I haven’t even got to describing the furniture, let’s just say the green Mexican daybed underneath the skylight was my favorite.

You’re probably wondering if I stopped in for a visit tonight, I did not. Toni doesn’t live there anymore. A few years ago she needed to move on. Tonight when I drove there I stopped first at the cabin. The stairs have rotted. The door is open. Piles of lumber from another property owner crowd the little shelf of land that it sits on. It is slowly decaying and merging back into the forest that surrounds it. I then drove up to the house. The house is being gutted. I don’t know by whom. It’s lost its charm and its lost its soul. I couldn’t help but feel like it died in being renovated, and, anyone with common sense would do the same. It needed so many upgrades and repairs. But for me it’s beat up quirkiness combined with Toni’s collection of cultural artifacts made it perfect in my eyes. How easy it is to romanticize something we don’t live inside of.

Today, it’s the middle of April, the weather is warm like the day I started writing this piece almost a year ago. I began it after I’d had an argument with my soon-to-be abusive ex-husband; my second marriage that I never should have entered into in the first place. I’m 43 and now have two marriages under my belt, something I never thought would happen to me when I said “I do” the first time in 2010. Like Toni, I have now entered into my Independent Era and I continue to define what that means to me as I evolve into it. Since leaving my 2nd husband last year I have been having the much needed glow up that I deserve. I’ve pushed myself beyond my limits this year on the mountain and I am deepening into my writing like I never have before. I’m making plans that I haven’t been able to do while we were together because of his mental instability or his disapproval and envious nature. I’ve reclaimed my life and created a home for myself that I think Toni would approve of, in fact I know she would.

It’s amazing what people say to you in the wake of a divorce…”you were always way to attractive for him…he did nothing but drag you down…you look happy and healthy again…you were always too good for him…you deserve so much better…it was clear that he’s always had some really intense mental health issues.” Yes, hearing those things does help a little, but what really helps the most is that I am creating the life that I’ve always wanted for myself but was always too afraid to go after. My life is filled with friends, lovers, travel, education, skiing, creative endeavors, and this summer hopefully much more hiking and paddling than I’ve ever done in such a fleeting season. I can honestly say that, messy second divorce aside, I am the happiest I’ve ever been and living a life of relentless beauty, much like Toni in her precious moments of pause on that sky clad mountain.