Me and my H20 today (from my deck).
A friend of mine and her brand new husband have built their dream retirement home. All cedar and pine with a huge great room with a vaulted ceiling and a wood burning stove and comfy chairs and sofas and cushions everywhere. Quarried stone floor, honeyed pine walls. One of those enormous cast iron chandeliers beaming down on everyone. Vast vista windows everywhere. Overlooking, well, nothing, really. The shed where hubby tinkers out back, the front stone driveway with parking for twelve cars. The reason I mention her view is that Newfoundland is an island with lashings of water everywhere. Ponds (we don't use the word lakes), streams, rivers and oceans and waterfalls. You'd have to work hard to get a building lot not overlooking some kind of H20.
But they managed it. I've seen this oddity of habitation/domicile here before. And I've asked about it. Like, WTF? The response has always been the same.
"I just hate the bloody water."
"Why?"
"My grandfather/uncle/father died in it. Murderous is that water. A killer."
Yeah, so go ahead, really punish that water.
We had a potluck there yesterday. There were fifteen of us lounged around the Great Room. With space for about thirty more if needs. The food was amazing. I brought my braised coconut spinach dish which I've written about.
The company was wonderful. Very enriching and interesting and time raced by as it does when you're having lots of laughs and interesting convos.
But I couldn't help thinking: why would anyone build such a gorgeous place and have it overlook such mundane and utilitarian humdrumity?
To each her own.
I see plenty of H20, but it is from nature's waterfall. I would love to live near the shore and be able to walk along at the water edge every morning or evening.
ReplyDeleteThis home sound like my kind of home - except I would have a view of the water...
ReplyDeleteIt seems a bit of an over-reaction to avoid water because of someone's unfortunate death. But I guess some people can be deeply traumatised by a thing like that.
ReplyDeletelol. I just wrote to a friend who sent me her pix of a seaside vacation, that as great as it was to know you could walk along a beach, it would soon bore me. There's no there there. I love me a good deep, mysterious, dark, forest, one kind of spooky and filled with apprehension. Take care the Wendigo doesn't get you.
ReplyDeleteTakes all kinds. My house if on a shore would be facing the forest behind.
Oh and ponds vs lakes? Yes I ran into that here too when I first moved south; going to the lake people said, wha??? I said to self? This is a slough. A lake now that's Great Slave Lake or Reindeer Lake, where Sturgeon as big as a whale silently shift along. Dad what do they eat, I asked? Brrrr.
I would certainly prefer to see the water, it fills me with a sense of calm. From our dining room you can watch the tug boats in the river carrying logs to wherever it is they go.
ReplyDeleteCheri
I suppose it is only imported people who really appreciate the views of good looking mother nature there. Everyone else must take it for granted and just be happy with an enormous house. I personally could look at the sea forever because it never fails to fascinate me. Unfortunately, I live a distance away from it.
ReplyDeleteGM:
ReplyDeleteKindred spirits, I never ever tire of the sea.
XO
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OWJ:
ReplyDeleteI found the vastness of the Great Room too uncosy for my taste :)
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Nick:
ReplyDeleteI think it more of an indifference, there has never been any kind of passion behind the dislike of it. Very, very odd.
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Anon:
ReplyDeleteI don't care for forests, I find them a little intimidating and there is a buried memory of some kind of nastiness. Let it stay buried.
As you say, all kinds. :)
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Cheri:
ReplyDeletethat sounds so lovely, tugboats and logs and water....
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Irene:
ReplyDeleteYes, I guess the familiarity breeds contempt, yeah?
I can never get enough of water.
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Hi WWW
ReplyDeleteI'm with you all the way. I don't think I could live happily without water views now. I have been so lucky to have had them for a good part of my life - even in Central London.
Now I've got an expanse of ocean that semi-circles me in the most magnificent way. It reminds me that we are small and temporary and I don't think that's such a bad thing - especially for an Australian!
xxx
Pants
I've often had similar thoughts about huge new houses in the city, smackdab feet away from the nextdoor neighbours' huge new house in the city.
ReplyDeleteIf you can afford a huge new house, why would you not want it somewhere that has space around it, and privacy, and a view of something besides the walls and roofs of other people's huge new houses?
Other people must have very different sorts of boundaries than I have. Or perhaps they can only afford huge new houses on city-size lots, and not the cost of space and land around them. Or perhaps they don't care for yard work or for hiring others to do it. Or perhaps they need to be closer to their jobs than they would be if they lived in the country, further away, where there is more space.
People have their reasons. They do. Many who have only lived in cities are more comfortable with other people's dwellings packed in closely around them. They would feel nervous and exposed if they lived where I do, with no neighbouring homes within yelling distance.
I find when I stay with a friend who lives in the city, my own personal boundaries drawn in and before long I'm feeling as if I'm in a comfy little postage stamp, and it's not so bad.
I have lived near the water most of my life.I can't imagine living anywhere else.
ReplyDeleteSeems like a terrible waste when you easily could have an amazing view!
ReplyDeleteMade your braised coconut spinach again last night. Where did you get it --I'm curious if it's a Newfoundland dish or what country's cooking it's from? No matter! It's delicious!