Ode to a Boathouse

It’s been two and a half years that Peter and I have lived in our little house by the sea.Two and half years of beach fires, ocean swims, trail hikes. Countless walks to the pier and drinks on the deck.

This little house is full of memories. Stormy nights and power outs, muggy nights with every window open and fans spinning. An early dawn when we woke to watch a raccoon digging up oysters in the shallows. The deer that ate our apples in the fall. The sound of a cougar, in the middle of the night, crying like a child under our bedroom window. And so many birds. Canadian geese, mallards, seagulls, stellar’s jays, robins, hummingbirds, bald eagles, and turkey vultures. I’ll always remember the Great Blue Herons nesting in the trees across the bay the week we brought Pearl home.

It’s not the first home in our married life but it’s the one we’ve been in the longest. There have been so many happy mornings over coffee, dinners shared with friends, exhausted nights after work. And there have been hard days and tears and nights spent lying awake wondering what the morning might bring. It’s been home, with all that the word entails.

At the end of June, we bought our first house. We’ve spent July renovating and we are frantically finishing details and packing up our worldly belongings and will be moved in by the end of this week. Peter’s been working hard at the new house while I try and manage the chaos at our current house. (I know I’m ready to be finished packing when our toaster breaks and my first thought is, “Well, one less thing to move.”)

Our new house is a little bit bigger (Pearl will have her own room!) and has an awesome backyard. We have made some pretty big changes to the interior that we’re really happy with and, for the first time, have gotten to pick our own paint colours!

We will miss our little house on the bay but there are many more good memories to be made.