No kids, no pets, no plants.
Necessity is the mother of invention 1987
The proposal…
Just shy of one year from our first date, JB orchestrated a simple but memorable proposal on Nantucket Island. We were staying with his best friend Jim and his fiancé in his family’s magical cottage,“Nanny’s Folly.” I almost foiled the proposal plan by falling down an emotional rabbit hole when a friend suggested that a proposal might be the prime purpose of the weekend getaway. To me, this was ridiculous. I was certain it was too early in the relationship from JB’s practical perspective; the point of the trip was simply to celebrate my 29th birthday. However, my heart was ready for that leap in commitment.
While my mind battled the unlikely hope of a proposal, I plunged into a funk of anticipated disappointment. After several impatient, and perhaps a bit snippy, remarks during the two-and-a-half hour ferry crossing from Cape Cod to the island, JB finally asked why I was in such a bad mood. Unable to admit the real source of my malaise, I blamed it on the partial truth of monthly hormonal demons. He delivered a gentle wake up call by expressing his hope for a very special weekend and cautioned that my mood was in danger of spoiling it.
Oddly his comment did not deliver the hint to my ambivalent brain that a proposal was in fact in the making. Instead, it washed over my rocky disposition like a gentle tide. I let go of expectations and focused on the moments at hand. The next evening, after the four of us enjoyed my birthday dinner, JB suggested that just the two of us go for a walk on the beach before giving me my present. I don’t recall what we talked about as we strolled hand-in-hand. I just remember our feet sinking in wet sand, the moonlight shimmering on black water, and the rhythm of waves gently tumbling on the shoreline.
When we headed back to the cottage and passed through the tiny, and now empty village center, a soft light illuminated the benches outside the island’s iconic Sconset Café. JB recommended we pause there to open my present. When he proffered the small square box, my mind leaped to earrings, squinting in the dim light to see two of something; so thorough was my mind’s suspension of proposal expectations. The reality of the solo brilliant sparkle eluded me until JB uttered a drawn out “well???” Always a man of minimal words, he assumed I comprehended the unspoken question. But I didn’t, and simply replied, “well what?” He volleyed back with an imploring, “well, will you marry me?” Only then did I let my heart and mind believe that I was looking at an elegant solitaire diamond ring. We both laughed as I admitted my expectation that he intended to adorn my ears and not my hand!
The expedited wedding…
JB wanted to marry in October. I loved the idea of a New England autumn wedding and assumed he meant the following year, not a meager three months hence. But JB could not endure a year long obsession with wedding plans, the current trend among our peers. Despite my doubts that a traditional wedding could be arranged so quickly, I walked down the aisle on my father’s arm in my dream gown, hand-made by my mom, in just fourteen weeks . Jim stood by as best man and my sister Joella as maid-of-honor. With the invaluable help of creative friends and family who found our historic venue, made the wedding cake, stitched velvet bridesmaid ensembles, and stocked the bar, we pulled off a ceremony and cocktail reception that truly reflected us and accommodated our limited budget.
We flew to Edinburgh via London that night to start our honeymoon. The crew of the British Airways flight announced our newly married state to the rest of the coach passengers and broke out champagne for the two of us. Following the overnight flight, we were so exhausted by celebration and travel that the minute we entered our cozy BnB room, we crashed fully clothed onto the bed, leaving romance to wait for rejuvenating sleep. Over the next few days we were able to meet two generations of JB’s family that had never visited the USA. It was a fascinating cast of characters, including his father’s eccentric sister and her adult daughter, who could have passed as JB’s twin, as well as an uncle who was still jogging and taking ice cold showers in his eighties. Another uncle generously housed us, shared his whisky, and took us to important familial landmarks and favorite haunts. After parting with family, we wandered the wild austere coast, deep blue lochs, and lush highlands along narrow twisting roads by car. The heart and soul of this diverse rugged landscape was reflected in the wry humor and craggy personalities we encountered among family and at pubs along the way.
Our travels concluded in Paris, which satisfied my French fascinations despite chilly October rains that clobbered me with a nasty head cold. JB ventured out alone to find cold remedies while I soaked in the luxuriously long and deep antique tub in our classic Haussmann style hotel. Our Parisian hide-a-way in the 8th arrondissement was surrounded by historic venues like La Place Vendôme, Place de la Concorde, and the Neoclassical church La Madeleine, intended by King Louis XV as the focal point of the new Rue Royal, leading to the Concorde.
This indelible journey had been JB’s first time abroad and our first international excursion together. He proved to be a great traveler, able to quickly adapt to foiled plans and find his way to and from unknown places with the prowess of a homing pigeon. It remains his superpower to this day.
Climbing the property ladder…
Back in Boston, we resumed our increasingly demanding careers while gradually developing a reputation among friends and family as “serial renovators.” JB had the brilliant foresight to hop on the property ladder at twenty-three, becoming the first home owner in his family and I became the shared benefactor . Five years before meeting me, and fresh out of Boston University’s College of Engineering, he risked a high-interest rate loan and cashed in any possessions of value, including a treasured stereo and a motorcycle that was his only non-public mode of transport. He managed to cobble together enough funds for a one-bedroom (twin size!) apartment in a historic Back Bay brownstone.
Among other improvements, JB painstakingly restored the original cherry fireplace surround and mantel buried under layers of lead paint. When he returned from a year-long work assignment in upstate New York, future best-man Jim, who was temporarily subletting the apartment, proved too lethargic to move. So with his sights firmly fixed on climbing the next rung of the property ladder, JB sold his condo to Jim which proved to be the path of least resistance for both of them. The profits cleared JB’s self-financed education and enabled the purchase of his South End condo that would become the site of our future enchanting second date.
The first property we purchased together was an 820 square foot apartment with just one bedroom and with a tiny kitchen tucked under the stairway to the upper floors of the building. However, the condo was a gloriously appointed Victorian, graced with 11-foot ceilings and an oval double parlor. It was adorned with intricately detailed cornices, two marble fireplaces, and elegant tall windows that filled the space with light. The rooms were laid out “enfilade;” one leading to another and separated by grand pocket doors. Because all the windows were too large in scale for store-bought curtains, I made them by hand with skills passed down to me from my mother. I never suspected that ten years later, these same skills would enable me to exit corporate America and create my own custom window treatment design and fabrication business.
Sipping too much zinfandel…
During that first year living in the Victorian condo, we spent one fateful evening at the dining table sipping too many bottles of cheap white zinfandel with our friend Jim. After several hours of increasingly fuzzy discussion, we all agreed to purchase a South End single family townhouse and convert it into a two-family residence. The arduous process of executing the plan taught all of us many critical skills and perseverance. I’ll never forget the first Thanksgiving when the three of us were living amid the construction chaos, sharing one bathroom and one barely usable kitchen. We could only find the “beaters,” and not the actual hand-mixer, to make whipped cream for the pumpkin pie. JB managed to attach a single beater to a readily available construction drill and carried on. Several, years later when Jim relocated for a new job, we bought him out and for a few years, rented out the second apartment. After legally converting the properties to condominiums we sold both and moved on to the next project.
Continuing the strategy…
We continued the strategy of renovating and flipping properties together seven more times over the next three decades. This led us from one “up and coming” Boston neighborhood to another, as well as a five year hiatus from the city in the charming seaside town of Hull just across Boston’s harbor. Repeating my ancestral and early childhood pattern of leaving one place for another, was stressful, invigorating, and transformational.
We loved discovering new running routes, restaurants, and local shops. Even in a small city like Boston, each neighborhood has a distinct history and culture, evidenced by the varying architectural styles and unique vibes. Each of our new homes required varying degrees of transformation which JB undertook primarily by himself. This often tested both his individual and our joint endurance.
Trips to England, Switzerland, Italy, and Greece offered welcome escapes. As JB’s marathon competitions became nearly a second career (or third if you count home renovations), ideal race locations in the US and Europe melded with vacation plans. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Zurich, and Berlin were added to our frequent flyer list. When a compromised hip in his early 50’s began to impact his ability to compete at a world class master’s level, JB reluctantly switched to cycling. Our travels therefore shifted to locations like the French Alps, the Pyrenees Mountains, and the Côte d’Azure that suited his new avocation, our shared enjoyment of hiking, and my affinity with seaside delights.
The road taken…
We were often asked how we could simultaneously renovate properties, travel so much, and manage professional careers. Our flip response was always: “no kids, no pets, no plants.” But as Chaucer wisely quipped “many a true word hath been spoken in jest.” Although we had not set out to eschew traditional commitments, we certainly made choices (for better or worse) that avoided the constraints of the associated responsibilities. This is not to say that our chosen path has been free from worry, doubts, disappointment, or grief. Life has a way of making sure that whatever road one takes it will weave through both sunshine and shadow. But isn’t it the contrast of light and dark that reveals the full depth and beauty of the landscape we traverse?
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