Our water comes from a well, and it’s kind of crappy. Too hard, lightly stinky, it leaves orange marks in the tub and creates deposits on the faucets. The water softener does an OK, but far from great, job. The bathroom tap has developed a steady drip that would need fixing; Moen sent me the replacement parts, but I don’t have the tool to remove the retaining nut, and since “non-essential” stores are closed for in-person shopping, I’ve opted for the strategy of leaving the parts and tools on the counter while the tap keeps dripping. At least this way it looks like I’m ready, at any minute, to start some plumberly work. In reality, I’m just waiting and annoying myself with the reminder of what needs to be done.
Last night, another part of the system raised its thorny wet head, as if we were playing whack-a-mole.
The well water is pumped up into the house to a pressure tank. All these machines dwell in the bowels under the back stairs, along with mice and nasty cobwebs. Although I frequent that area is little as humanly possible, I am keenly aware of the sounds they emit. After a certain amount of water use, the pump kicks in, drawing up water until the pressure tank reaches a certain pressure and then the pump shuts off. Frequent pump cycles are often a cue that someone has left a tap running or we need to give the toilet handle a jiggle.
Last night the pump went on and continued, on and on, for several minutes. Husband and I started checking the usual suspects — what was running, why was the pump not stopping? We (he!) eventually turned it off manually. Much Hungarian grumbling and grunting ensued as Husband investigated the possibilities. Was it the pump or the pressure tank? After various configurations and permutations and a night of allowing the beast to cool its heels, we seem to be back in business. Neither of us knows what the problem was, which means it could (will) happen again at any moment, and that moment is most likely going to be on a Sunday or a holiday or at another Very Inconvenient Time.
We wait. We wait and wait and wait, and we try to calibrate our own pressure systems.
Every evening, during the hours between after-supper cleanup and when we give up and decide to crawl off to bed — a stretch of time that seems to grow by the week — we exist in various pressurized states of suspended animation.
We do very little. It’s utterly wasted time, and we know it. Oh, we talk. Husband sharpens his knives and tests their blades against a piece of wood. He searches through realtor.ca while I scroll social media and attempt to learn Hungarian with Duolingo. The pent up frustration and restlessness is palpable. We stare into the distance, drink wine, stoke the fire, let the dog out to pee. The adult kid roams the house like a caged lion when he isn’t playing video games or sprawled across a surface watching shows on his phone. The youngest is attuned the slightest shift in our mood or conversation, all ears and ready with “why?” and “what’s happening?”
We all wish we had better answers to those questions.
We’ve lost the property we wanted so dearly. I’ve kept the photo as my desktop image — haven’t found it in myself to change that just yet. I am crushed and more than a little heartbroken.
We dance around What Next. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say Husband charts our next course and mulls over all the possible backup plans while I dance around the issue. One tiny part of me still hopes that our duplex will sell fast, the anonymous new buyers of our dream property will fail in their evil imposter quest, and all the pieces will fall magically into place. Experience tells me otherwise, so I try to move on, except there’s not much to move on to. I get up from the blue chair by the wood stove and move to the long chair next to the window. It’s something, anyway.
Reality is this terrible dystopia. The comforts of home feel stale and oppressive. I fear leaving Canada because it occurs to me that I may not be allowed to return — at least not on terms I would accept. I’m not keen on leaving the adult kid here on his own, and he would not likely want to come with us. I fear staying because all signs point to an increasingly authoritarian and oppressive situation (regime?), and if we wait too long, we may not be allowed to leave.
We wait to see if the duplex will sell. We chew over what to do if it doesn’t. We re-examine all the reasons to believe it will. We consider our options for moving east, for acquiring land and a self-sufficient refuge. I’m not sure anymore that we aren’t too late.
We wait for a sign of which way the wind is blowing, what the future holds. Recently, a friend told Husband that his Bulgarian grandmother is a clairvoyant, and with that thin ancestral thread established, he assured us that the knew that the second people who will visit the duplex tomorrow will buy it. This seems as good a reason as any for hope.
Tonight, there will be a good meal, a warm fire, cold white wine.
There will be all the time in the world to reconsider every option without doing a single thing.
We will go to sleep at the last possible moment, hopefully not afraid or angry, to sleep deeply without dreaming. My dreams are rarely of much comfort these days.
I will wake tomorrow with the jolt of panic that I have grown used to and weary of, to check the time, recall reality, and then set my sights on making coffee, starting the fire, and sitting down to work.
We are becoming caged animals, clutching onto delicate tendrils of our humanity.
Maybe this will be the new frontier of our dreams:
I have hopeful days and disheartened days. Days when I wonder where the time went because I have spent my day looking for signs of positivity in the reports that I read on line and the podcasts that I listen to and even the historical books that I have taken to reading to help me understand how these despots can have taken over our countries and we are sinking further and further into a CCP life.
Every day I hope for a light at the end of the tunnel and yes, I do pray that good will overcome this evil that is trying to engulf us.
Stay the course, Tina, and stay strong.
Hugs
Awww. What a roller coaster ride that one was! xoxoxo