TEXT & PHOTOS BY PAMELA WOLFF | April 19, 2020: First, we are well. Tony (my husband) and I decamped from Chelsea, NYC on March 13, thinking we would spend a few days on the Cape and return to 21st Street to spend our seclusion at home there.

In the few days following, it became clear that it would be best if we hunkered down in our house in the woods, at the end of our sand road, for the duration—whatever that means. The next two generations of Wolffs were in hearty agreement.

And so here we are, and glad to be.

There is much to be said for being retired. I don’t feel nearly as guilty as I might in temporarily abandoning my Chelsea roots. There are those who are filling the shoes I left empty, and I am grateful to them.

It’s my hope that my neighbors will orchestrate getting the 16 window boxes installed on our windowsills filled with red geraniums, in time for Mother’s Day—a 37-year tradition.

It is still very early spring here on the Cape, a few daffodils, the forsythia, tulips. Hosta poking up. The maples are just showing red at the tips of the branches. Last night it snowed, about two inches.

We have many visitors here in the woods, most of them furry, but for the feathered ones:

–Three deer: A buck, doe, and fawn.

–Three raccoons, one of them tailless.

–Two coywolves, bigger than German shepherds: One light beige, the other ghostly gray.

–Two gray squirrels that play tag, one red squirrel that is super-aggressive.

–Dozens of goldfinches crowd the feeders, fighting for positions on the posts, and a pair of doves has taken over the birdbath, and a dozen or so wild turkeys spend afternoons with us.

–Haven’t seen a single chipmunk yet.

–Almost forgot the pair of cardinals!

I spend mornings attending to in-house projects—fixing lamps, patching sweaters the moths have had at. On sunny days I roam the woods, gathering branches fallen from the pitch pines, in the high winds of last week. I will make a bonfire in the turnaround to get rid of the brush.

I’ve set myself the long-deferred task of sorting through my father’s papers, organizing his writings into accessible files, to be labeled for content. There are two distinct authors in his files: The newspaperman and the fiction writer. Then there are his letters and journals.

He occasionally resorted to using the shorthand he learned at Union University in Jackson, TN, to assure privacy should the curious wish to sneak a look. I have the stamina and heart for about an hour of this work at a time. I do it when our fake president is holding his bogus pressers, so I don’t have to be exposed to the disgusting garbage that he issues.

Aside from the MSNBC talking heads that are the background of our lives, Tony and I watch old, obscure movies on Criterion, Netflix, or TCM; nothing later than 1948. Tonight we will watch “Leave Her to Heaven.”

Yesterday, our well failed. This morning, in the snow, we were able to link three 50 ft. hoses from our neighbor’s outdoor faucet to ours, thus achieving temporary relief in the form of toilet-flushing capability. Monday, a new pump. Our well is 140 feet down to the water table (aquifer). The pump lives at the bottom.

On the first decent day, I will set about opening the “shack” for the season. That’s the 20 ft. x 25 ft. studio building, once a machine shop on a chicken farm, that sits on the hill above our house. We had it moved from Cobb Farm in South Truro in the1970s. It is the summer residence for my children and their children, as they work out between them. All prefer it to living in the house, which I well-understand. When our kids were little we all spent summers there, roughing it, renting our house out. Best times.

We’ve been sequestered here now for five weeks. It has been revelatory.  I have learned to let go of the need to know everything that is happening at the two joined Chelsea buildings that form our co-op. It’s been a hard habit to break after 33 years of being responsible for the well-being of that special place and the people who live in it. The fate of that great ship is now entirely in the hands of others. I wish them well.

Tony and I have figured out how to live cheek by jowl and stay on speaking terms. It has to do with patience, tolerance, mutual respect, thoughtfulness… and love.

Meanwhile, my duties as a public member of our Manhattan Community Board continue, as we learn to navigate ZOOM and Gotomeeting. My committee, the Chelsea Land Use committee, addresses new development in our area as well as applications for changes in the Chelsea Historic District, the Special West Chelsea Historic District, and the Ladies Mile. The current hot topic is an application to the LPC for a massive new building at Ninth Avenue and West 14th Street. It is sucking up a lot of air for the committee, as we adjust to a new co-chair as well as this virtual reality.

It is strange and difficult not to be able to visit with Ed Kirkland, my ward, but I am so grateful for the amazing Sadat, his live-in aide, who knows better than anyone how to keep him safe, engaged, and healthy.  On June 15, Ed will be 95.

Enough of this.  And probably more than you ever wanted to know.

Stay well,

Pamela

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