Back from The Cottage

It is just before 11:00 on Sunday morning as I'm typing this. We got back home last night, after spending two nights up at the little cottage on top of the mountain. I hated to leave it...... and my eyes were filled with tears as my husband drove back down the mountain and into town.

Not that we hadn't driven down that mountain while we were up there, because we did go into town while we were there. We met with the realtor to see two other houses that were up for sale (neither of which had any appeal to either of us), and we went grocery shopping at the small supermarket. Wonderful little market, the size of "supermarkets" back when I was a teenager, before they became mega-markets with miles of aisles and millions of products. This little market had an ample supply of produce, meats and fish, frozen goods, bakery items, pet supplies, cleaning/laundry items... just about anything you could need. The frozen food section even had boxes of "White Castle" hamburgers. (Of course, I told my husband that that alone was a "sign.")

I was finding "signs" all over the property while we were there. One of the wind-chimes out back had dolphins on it. Dolphins! In the middle of the Hill Country. Dolphins are our young friend C's favorite thing in the world... her goal in life is to be a marine biologist so she can work with and study dolphins.

In one of the bathrooms of the cottage, I found a framed painting of a martini glass, of all things--- also a bit out of place up on the mountain. Underneath the painting of the glass were the words "Here's looking at you, kid." -- Which is, of course, Humphrey Bogart's line in the film Casablanca, which is my favorite movie of all time, bar none. When I was a kid, my dad used to sing "A kiss is just a kiss......" when he kissed me goodnight, because he loved that movie as well. My dad always said that the only person who looked better than him in a tux was Bogart.

The house up on the mountain, which I'm calling a "cottage" now, was just magical. It truly felt like home, and I knew it was a happy home from the first time we walked into it last week when we were first up there with the realtor. During this trip up, we met with the original owners, the husband being the builder. The house is just five years old, and it's as solid as the stones and logs that were used to built it. He showed us all the photos of the house being built, and you could hear the pride in his voice, and appreciate the workmanship that went into the building of it. We spent over two hours with the husband and wife, and we went over everything. There's even a hidden tree-house on the property, and a cave that was dug out by the husband and his son. So many nooks and crannies and surprises on those five and a quarter acres. There's also a small waterfall built into the terraces outside the master bedroom--- something we hadn't seen the first time we were up there. The switch for the waterfall is in the master bedroom, and the trickling down of the water was as soothing as could be.

The owner's wife told me about the holiday dinners they hosted up there, along with Easter egg hunts and scavenger hunts. She said they've had as few as four guests, and as many as 40 from time to time. (40 for a party, not for sleeping over.) Everything she said about her house there reminded me of our home right here. Which, of course, I took as another sign that this is indeed the cottage for us.

The first night we were there, a terrible storm ravaged San Antonio, which is only 40-something miles from Comfort. My husband and I were on the back deck and we watched that storm rolling through in the distant sky. We watched the lightning as if it were a fireworks show, which indeed it was. It was just beautiful, and it all brought tears to my eyes.

The second night, about 2:00 in the morning, we heard rain outside and got up to watch it. It began to hail, and we watched the raisin-sized hail pellets bouncing off of the stone terraces and the wooden porch and deck. It was all just magical. And it was a horrible rainstorm, but I couldn't have felt safer.... that house is just so sturdy, so fortress-like with all the stones and logs and concrete walls. I felt the same thing up there that I've felt down here... that the house just wraps itself around you when you're in it. Another sign.

My mind about the house, our cottage, is made up, of course. I knew it when we were leaving it yesterday afternoon. I couldn't look back at the house as we drove away because I didn't know if I'd be seeing it again, and I didn't want to remember what it looked like the last time my eyes saw it. So I just looked away into the woods and tried to stop the tears. I couldn't even speak, I was just so choked up. I don't even know when I claimed "ownership" of that cottage. As I washed dishes in the sink? As I made tuna and avacado salad for our first dinner there? As we watched the lightning storm from the deck?

So now begins my husband's thinking... and his discussions with the realtor up there in town, negotiations with the owners, and discussions with a good friend of ours in Dallas who's been selling Texas properties for over 40 years. Ultimately, this decision is my husband's, and I've told him that. I can't make this decision with a clear head, because my heart is already in that house.

My husband has said that if we don't get this house, there will always be another house. I told him that's the rational, sane way of looking at it, and my head understands that, but my heart doesn't. My heart is telling me that if we don't get that house in that town, I may not ever be able to set foot in Comfort again. I haven't told my husband that, because I'm trying not to put any pressure on him. This has got to be his decision, and I'll stick by whatever he ultimately decides to do.

Which reminds me of something one of the shop-owners told me while we were in town. I was asking her about Comfort, and discussing the reasons why the town has stayed so small, so quaint, so Mayberry-like for over a hundred years. She told me that "People don't pick Comfort..... Comfort picks its people. And it just doesn't pick anyone who doesn't get what this town is all about."

In my mind, Comfort picked us ten years ago when we first went there, and every time we've talked about the Hill Country, our conversations always got back to that one town. In my mind, we're already there.