The Price of Solitude
So we decided to buy the land next door that came up for sale 25 years after it last went on the market. Back then we lived in our shack a few hundred feet away, but there was No Way we could’ve afforded it, no lost sleep over that then. This time we’ve been through a quarter century of rental neighbors. We’ve had school ma’arms and deadbeats, milkmen and veterinarian assistants, Navy guys and glassblowers, couples with kids, men with dogs, folks with breeding cats, people we never set eyes on for years and people we wish we hadn’t seen at all, one that died, one that lived in the house with curtains drawn without power or heat for a month who I figured had moved until the day he stood at the power box beating on it insanely with a hammer, I guess to see if electricity might return.
Probably the lowest rent on the island, this little house. There’s a converted chicken shed a mile north that rents for $250 a month more than this place next door. So we’ve had a parade of short term neighbors, pretty much not interested in the neighborhood or us, just folks hoping to move UP in life. Meaning, a job closer to town. Someday they’ll regale their grandkids with tales of killer nettles and night crawling blackberries, 5 day power outages and artist neighbors while the kids listen in wide-eyed, open mouthed horror.
So we took a long deep inhalation … and bought the place. I guess so we could NOT have neighbors up there. Sure, we could rent the place, AirB&B it, but that sort of defeats our logic. Nothing new there, but lately it’s been quiet here. Peaceful. Hell, almost pastoral. I’d like to say you can’t put a price on that. But believe me, I can. Right down to the nickel.
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