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OBSERVATIONS
My Little House
By Margaret Smith
At 7 a.m., I sit on my enclosed back porch at my laptop. Through broad windows
I can see a gray and pink velvet dawn. In the early light, two pairs of cardinals
study the ground in the horse paddock in front of me, looking for breakfast.
Scissortails flutter about. Eight errant geese fly high, high overhead. If I
move to the door, my garden comes into view. Some pinking tomatoes will need
to be picked before the afternoon rains move in.
Sitting here in the peace of the morning, the house drapes around me like a
cherished shawl, filled with the things I love: plants, books, framed embroidery,
family pictures and a relic or two from the Victorian house where I grew up.
My golden cat, Twister, and his sister, Violet, with little white feet and round
eyes, sit by me, devoted to my hobbling, aging person. This is my Eden, my Little
House. Modest, scarcely 800 square feet, nevertheless palatial for a humble
woman who once only dreamed of having a place to escape the roaring freeways
of the city.
When I was small, my mother used to sing an old, sentimental song to me. The
song concludes: “I’ll build a sweet little nest way out in the West/And
I’ll let the rest of the world go by.” There is such tranquility
in that line. Yet few of us have the opportunity to “let the rest of the
world go by.” My days were spent commuting to work, coping with the hubbub
of high school English classes, grading papers, single-parenting my children,
tending an elderly mother, maintaining a house, yard and automobile, stretching
a monthly paycheck that never seemed to be enough for my family’s needs—responsibilities
ad infinitum.
Then the tumult of my world quieted. The children grew up and built their own
worlds. Mother, at 102 years, slipped away in her sleep, and I reached 65 years,
retirement time. My friends were creating their getaways, and I craved a summer
cottage, a place to call my own. But a scornful secret voice laughed at the
lilting one: “Forget it, Maggie. Buy a lawn chair, some earplugs to stifle
the roar of I-45, and stop yearning for the impossible.”
But the impossible became possible through a fortunate turn of events. I was
offered a half-time position, using my English skills, with a modest salary
to fortify my retirement income. In the meantime, my son and his wife moved
into a home on FM 977 and County Road 408 at Evans Chapel, just west of Leona
in Leon County. Knowing of my love for the area, my son offered me a plot behind
his home for my dream getaway. Why not? I found a local carpenter who had solid
skills, and a bank that approved a small home loan. At completion, the little
house resembled a plain crackerbox: 500 square feet with a bedroom, a bath and
a living-dining room-kitchen in one room. I squeezed every penny. I selected
the most economical fixtures I could find. I painted the interior myself. Scouting
discount stores, my daughter and sister-in-law helped me select and coordinate
furnishings. To enhance the plain, flat front of the square house, I affixed
window boxes to each of the four windows. I dug, planted, mowed, trimmed. Soon
I had a fence to frame the front of the property. My weekends were filled with
work—for the love of the little house. And its name became The Little
House.
That was 2000. Since, I have added an enclosed porch on the back of the house
and an open garage. I have had family and friends here for parties, had holidays
here, birthdays, reunions and even a summer workshop for English teachers. But
most often, I come alone with the cats, work in the yard, write, read, listen
to an Astros game and watch the birds.
My house is the completion of an old woman’s dream. Your dream, if you
have such a dream, is probably very different. Yet, if you long for a place
to come to and feel you can never attain it, do not be daunted. If I can do
it, anybody can.
Writer Henry David Thoreau, who had perhaps the world’s most famous retreat,
a cabin on Walden Pond, advises us about dreams: “If you have built castles
in the air, that is where they should be … Now put the foundations under
them …”
My advice to you in building those foundations: Don’t wait—act
now, because tomorrows aren’t trustworthy; don’t be afraid to take
risks; sacrifice for what you want; work hard—above all, have fun in what
you do. Certainly, my Little House does not house a Thoreau. It is the fulfillment
of a dream, a place of peace for one simple woman who longed to escape the city
and created that escape on a county road in Texas.
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Navasota Valley and Houston County Electric Cooperatives serve Leon County.
Margaret Smith, a retired schoolteacher, lives in Spring when she’s
not at her Little House.
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