fixing my cycle

Several months ago, when I purchased the house with no name, I announced to one and all that I was finally settling down.  No more to roam.

I did add I would be on the road for a few trips.  But then I was tossing out the anchor to enjoy the sybaritic life of Mexico.

My trips would fill my calendar from November through early March.  My brother and sister-in-law came for a visit; I traveled through southern Mexico for a month with my cousin and his wife; I went north for a few weeks to attend to ministerial functions; and I traveled a bit locally with my Air Force chum the first week of March.  Since then, I have been acting as squire of the manor.

For six years, I lived on the other side of the bay.  Even though I did not have true routines over there, I did have networks of people where I could regularly slip in and out of their lives.  I have nothing similar in Barra de Navidad.

But I am getting there.  When I lived in Salem, a lot of my free time revolved around my hot tub.  I read in it.  I had meals in it.  I chatted with neighbors from its womb-like comfort.

I have discovered a good substitute at the house.  My pool.

I have not spent much time in it during the past four months after the heat of our late summer disappeared.  But that was because I simply was not around to enjoy it.

Yesterday, that changed.  I grabbed a bottle of water and my Kindle, and slipped into the cool embrace of what will soon be my primary living space in the house. 

There are few things more pleasant than being surrounded by water while reading.  (Maybe that is why the classic question is "what books would you take to a desert isle?")  Yesterday afternoon, it was The Economist, National Review, and a couple of chapters in Eugene Rogan's The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East.

This house has plenty of space for all sorts of activities.  For dinner, I sat on the upper terrace watching the light shift on the walls as the sun went down.

I have some ideas on how to decorate the terrace upstairs.  Before I buy any formal furniture, though, I am going to buy a small table and a folding chair.  I want to set it up in different places at different times of day to determine just where I should define my living space.

A sitting area with a separate formal dining area will fit perfectly up there.  The question is where.  I can then start the dreaded search for furniture.

But, for now, I will be happy to play Stanley to the ever-elusive Livingston.  Perhaps, he will be down by the watering hole.