Well, after years of being surrounded by nothing but woods, the trees on the east side of my land have been coming down at a rapid clip and I’m able to see daylight through them.
Yep. Someone finally is building a house next to mine on that side.
I’m experiencing mixed emotions about it. Part of me will miss all of the privacy I’ve had these past 16 years – privacy that allowed me to wear my pajamas while watering my lawn. But another part of me is finding some comfort in the fact that if, while I’m outside in the aforementioned pajamas, an angry bear decides to attack me, my screams finally might be heard by someone…other than more angry bears.
Watching the land next to mine being cleared transports me back to the time when my own land was undergoing the same treatment.
How well I still remember it…and not very fondly.
My husband and I had purchased a pristine, eight-acre parcel of land, rich with every tree imaginable, from white birch to giant redwoods (well, maybe some really big oaks). Wildflowers dotted the open areas, surrounded by blueberry bushes and lacelike ferns. I half expected to see Julie Andrews come dancing across the property, singing excerpts from "The Sound of Music".
But then the construction (more like destruction), began.
During the entire process, it became increasingly difficult for me to keep reminding myself that what resembled the target of a giant meteorite storm was going to someday become my dream house.
Each day, more and more trees disappeared, and in their place appeared huge, uprooted stumps lying on their sides. They looked like big, dirt-covered octopus carcasses. Walking past them was, well, pretty creepy, especially around sunset. And I constantly imagined the beady little eyes of all the creatures that previously had lived in those trees, glaring at me and plotting my slow and painful demise because I was responsible for destroying their happy homes.
The driveway I'd envisioned leading up to the doorstep of our future home was made of smooth gravel, solidly packed and lined with green grass and flowers on both sides. But my vision wasn’t easy to keep when the driveway actually resembled a roller-coaster track covered with big chunks of jagged gray rocks. And lining each side of it were assorted limbs, branches, piles of brush, dug-up boulders and enough logs to build a frontier fort.
In the clearing next to where the house eventually was supposed to stand were holes of all sizes and depths, where rocks and stumps had been removed. Whenever it rained, they quickly filled up with water and looked like rows of shallow puddles.
Unfortunately I ended up with wet underwear that proved those puddles weren’t nearly as shallow as they looked.
Near the center of the land, a pile of debris grew until it was about the size of Disney’s Space Mountain. I became concerned it should have a blinking light on top to warn low-flying aircraft. When I mentioned it to my contractor, however, he told me not to worry. He said he'd get a burning permit and turn the mountain of debris into a mound of ash in no time flat.
At the time, I remember thinking the eruption of Mount St. Helens probably had produced less ash than that pile of debris was going to produce. I also feared that when he did set it on fire, the blaze would be so bright, alien life forms would think it was a signal from Earth. And it would generate so much heat, all of the people who lived within a mile of our land would be able to roast marshmallows while still standing on their porches.
Another bad thing about clearing the land was the mud. The soil at our land, we soon discovered, was mostly clay – wet, heavy, sticky clay. If we were building something like an adobe hut, we’d have been all set. Instead, we seemed to be building adobe sneakers…while the dogs clomped around on clay-covered paws.
If worse came to worse, I figured I always could take up pottery-making.
When the contractor informed us the foundation hole had been dug, my husband and I, eager to see the site of our future basement, rushed up to the land.
What we saw looked like an Olympic-sized swimming pool, complete with two feet of water in the bottom. Before we knew it, one of our dogs found the ramp leading down into the hole and took a swan dive off it, then happily splashed around in the clay-filled water.
She emerged looking as if she'd been starched.
The next day, there was even more water in the foundation hole. Seeing that I’d planned to use the basement solely for storage, visions of my vintage Barbie dolls doing the dead-man's float and my teddy bears absorbing water until they swelled up to the size of real grizzlies filled my mind.
"Don't worry about it," my contractor said (and seemed to say a little too often). "We'll pump out all of that water in no time at all."
Great, I'd thought. Maybe he could use it to put out the fire after he lit that gargantuan pile of debris.
So now, all I can say is I’m hoping the future house next to mine will be constructed with no problems.
But not too soon.
I want to continue to wear my pajamas out in the yard for as long as possible.
Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.
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