A Ghost Story

As I went through the Epstein house, clearing it out and getting it ready for a gut renovation, I found and set aside quite a number of things that I thought would be lovely in our little café, namely an eclectic mix of roughly 1,000 dishes.  But also lamps, light fixtures, tables, desks, chairs, hutches, filing cabinets, a convection oven and full-size toaster oven still in their original boxes, baking sheets, muffin tins of every shape and size, and a water cooler that was made before I was born.  (That is not an exhaustive list by any means).

But going through the Epstein family belongings was sometimes a little unnerving and I tried not to think too much about whether there were any spirits or ghosts hanging around because I was absolutely sure that there were and what you think about you bring about, as my friend Heath used to tell me.  When I found myself cleaning and sorting alone in the house and things felt particularly eerie, I did what any normal person would do and sang old jazz songs out loud to the ghosts.  Songs I thought Mr. and Mrs. Epstein would like.  Something to keep them happy and distract them from haunting me.

On February 24, we scheduled a moving truck and two local guys to come haul everything up the road to our barn.  In addition to me, Michael, and the kids, Michael’s brother John flew in to help and we pulled our neighbor Andrew in, too.  I was the first to arrive that day in order to meet the movers and unlock the doors and when I stepped into the house I was fully assaulted by a crackling, grating, hauntingly deranged buzzing sound.  My first instinct was to ignore it and wait for it to go away.  My second instinct was to ignore it and wait for Michael to arrive and make it go away.  But two and a half seconds into my first and second instincts I was already going slowly insane so I had no choice but to walk through the empty house ALONE and track down the noise that more and more sounded like it was coming from another dimension entirely.  While I sang "I'll Be Seeing You" I followed the sound up the first flight of stairs hoping I would find some old electronic right there on the floor that I could bash in with my boot.  But the noise was coming from one more flight up, in the attic.  UGH! Seriously?? (as I imitated my 8 year old).  The attic?!?  Do I have to????

The smoke alarm battery at the very top of the attic steps was wheezing out its last breath.  I fiddled with the cover, pulled out the battery, the noise stopped, my body relaxed.  I took a moment to laugh at myself for getting all worked up over a dying battery.  Then I had to congratulate myself for being so brave.  While I was doing all that I noticed a little label on the battery, handwritten with a date.  Mr. Epstein labelled his smoke alarm batteries!  OMG, what a cutie!!  Then the moving truck pull into the driveway so I dropped the battery into my coat pocket and ran down the stairs.

By herculean effort the truck was packed right around the time we all really needed to sit down and eat something. John, Michael, the girls, and I went to Ted’s Diner and ordered burgers.  I sat across from John and we took turns making each other laugh about the sitcom that was our morning – the Bert & Ernie/Abbott & Costello moving team who walked and talked like an Andy Griffith episode was the gift that kept on giving, all through lunch.  The girls took turns playing games on our phones and complaining about child labor.  At some point I told everyone about the battery going off in the morning while I was ALONE and how brave I was to go up into the attic ALONE but for some reason John and Michael were totally focused on finding out what brand of battery it was since it had lasted ten years in a smoke alarm.  I remembered I still had the battery in my pocket. “Rayovac,” I said.  And I also glanced one more time at the date, taking better note of the actual numbers written on the tiny white label in Jay’s handwriting:

02/24/07

Gulp.  

"What is today's date?" I asked, slightly shivering.

"The 24th," the kids told me since they had our phones.

And then I'm pretty sure I also asked what year it was.  

I really did try to keep my freak-out under control and the volume of my voice contained, especially since I was using the f-word quite a bit.  But John was surprisingly calm. (I guess one of the adults at the table had to be).  And he figured it out pretty quickly:

“What's the big deal?  Mr. Epstein’s spirit was trapped in the battery.  It's a good place to be if you want to watch over everything and make sure nothing catches on fire or whatever.  But now that you’ve taken care of all of his things, given them a new home, and you’re going to take care of his house and turn it into something beautiful, it’s all good.  Now he can move on.  He can be free.  You’ve set him free and he's happy.  You should be happy, too"

And I am happy.  I'm excited about the plans we have for this house, and for this stretch of Main Street.  And yes, it took me 5 months to write this blog post.  Let's all cross fingers that it doesn't take me nearly that long to explain why.  More to come!

Emptying The House

When we put the bid in on the Epstein house, part of our offer was to do the clean-out ourselves.  The house was still pretty full in some places, mostly in the attic, closets, and kitchen cabinets.

  

But I was not daunted.  Going through an old house is an amazing treasure hunt and so much fun (especially for an introvert), and especially if you have a deep, abiding love for old and wacky things.

When we want to quickly describe to friends the state that the house was in, we tell them that there were still clothes in the dryer - that more or less paints the picture. In fact, here is a picture.  Of the dryer.  But don’t look too carefully or your eyes will come across the skeleton of a dead animal on that pile of towels on the floor and you will have to resist the urge to gag and run, as I did, when I went to pick up the towels.

It would appear that when a house lays empty for ten years, sneaky little critters find a way to dig into the corner of the den.  And then it would seem they get turned around quite a bit, especially if the house has three floors and was added on to every which way from Sunday, creating 8,000 square feet of space to completely freak out in. Lamps on the floor with their shades popped off are usually a good indication that a squirrel, raccoon, or skunk has completely lost its mind in your living room. Three others had the decency to go die behind the couch for the movers to find. 

The picture below was taken on the very first day that I walked into the house with the broker.  I brought/dragged my two kids along, one of whom (the one with her arms crossed) does not share my deep and abiding love for old things and she spent the better part of 2016 asking me when the wrecking ball would arrive and if I could drive her home.  I, on the other hand, saw that old couch and nearly peed my pants. 

Plus, there's a matching chair.  

I have a very very hard time throwing things away and I get very very anxious when I hear that things are going to a landfill.  I don’t quite break out into hives, but my throat restricts.  I seem to remember a moment from my childhood when one of the Care Bears put the fear of god in me about trash and pollution and waste to the point where I now recycle everything from clothing tags to toilet paper rolls, I buy my kids clothes from ThredUp.com and I prefer to shop at flea markets, yard sales, and auctions because I am sick to stomach with all that we consume and then throw away.  There was also that fateful day when I made the mistake of ordering a nightstand from Pottery Barn and when it arrived I opened the box to find that it was wrapped in 20 feet of plastic, styrofoam, and dead dolphins and I nearly slit my wrists from the pain.  So while many people told me to pull two dumpsters into the driveway and just hurl the contents of the Epstein house out the windows and into the trash, I decided I would never be able to live with myself if I didn’t go room by room and find either a new home or a recycling bin for whatever I came across. 

The first day of clean-out, the kids and I bagged up the clothes that were hanging in the closets.  My favorites, without a doubt, were the 1980's prom dresses and I did, for a hot second, consider keeping them but we collectors have to choose our battles or we are headed for certain divorce.  After we filled the back of the Buick, we drove the clothes across the street to First Presbyterian and filled their donation shed.  It was then that I noticed their sign also said "We accept shoes, belts, purses, blankets, sheets, drapes, pillowcases, and stuffed animals" which I took as a sign from God because you know who else didn't like to throw things away???  Plus, if you took liberty with the word "purses" and stretched it to include "Suitcases, camera bags, camping coolers, and anything with a strap" you could fill another 30 or so industrial-strength contractor bags before you even got to the attic. And on the floor of Mrs. Epstein's closet were a couple of large trash bags containing thick window dressings circa 1963. Thankfully First Presbyterian does not stipulate what decade your donations need to be from.

Not surprisingly, my husband and children did not particularly care to spend the frigid winter months of early 2017 in a drafty (understatement), unheated old house going through items that another family would just as soon throw into a dumpster, so I was often there alone but sometimes I could bribe the kids with pizza and dollar bills and sometimes my husband needed an excuse to get away from the kids. But if you came down to help you had to wrap yourself head to toe in 5 or 6 layers of down.  Most days it was colder IN the house than outside of it.  Our neighbor Andrew brought over a big metal tube connected to a propane tank that shot honest-to-god flames of fire into the living room and we did not die, despite all signs pointing to YES.  Oh, and you also had to wear dust masks but then you still didn't want to breathe because your breath would fill your glasses with fog and sweat and I don't care what the package says, that stupid metal thing that goes across your nose is lazy and dumb.

The Next Venture

In September of 2001 I did not yet have children, was not yet married, was not yet engaged.  Michael and I were living in a one bedroom, fourth-floor walk-up in the West Village when the towers were hit.  And, like everyone else, our lives changed forever when they fell.

We roamed around our neighborhood in a daze that fall, grasping for things – explanations mostly, I suppose.  One weekend we stumbled upon some pictures hanging in a small storefront window - pictures of houses on wide, green, country land with reasonable prices.  Suddenly, before us, was a chance to buy a salve for our pain – a quiet, clean, bucolic escape.  A place to retreat and recharge so we could continue to live in the city we loved.

It took a while – many weekends with a few different real estate agents – to find our house: a beautiful White Victorian with black shutters and a view of the valley where the sun sets.  All the old woodwork still in place inside.  We put a bid on it and learned that two other couples had put a bid in as well.  We rebid, offered more, but it was not enough.  Amazingly we were not the only New Yorkers with the brilliant idea of finding a peaceful oasis outside of the city that year.  The Catskills were in a real estate boom, one they hadn’t seen in 30 years, maybe more.  Another young couple, living in Brooklyn, not yet married, beat us out for the house.  Damn them!  But we didn't give up.  We kept looking, driving up every weekend, and then we got the call.  Our broker had found our house.  A cute little Dutch Colonial with green shutters on a hill in Bethel with a river running through it.  We got into another bidding war, but this one we were determined not to lose.

Our agent recommended a local lawyer to help us with the closing – Jacob Epstein.  His office and home were right on Main Street in Jeffersonville – office in front, large family home in back where he and his wife raised their five kids.  We pulled up on the day of closing and parked the car right out front of his store front window.  Halfway through signing papers, Michael jumped up and ran to the car with no explanation.  I found out later he was sweating bullets about the engagement ring he had left in the trunk.

After closing, we thanked Jay for all his help and drove to our new house – the one with an extensive list of repairs and renovations.  I was very busy with a pen and paper when Michael suggested we stand together for a minute to take in the view.  It seemed a bit ridiculous to stand still and look at a river when there were so many notes to take.  But somehow he got me to do it and then he got down on his knee and pulled out a ring.

For ten amazing years we cooked, hosted, built fires in the wood stove, peeled painted wallpaper, nursed and changed the diapers of our two babies, and swung on the learning-curve of being homeowners.  We took long drives through the beautiful farmland and took deep breaths of the sweet country air periodically mixed with cow dung as we played the dreamers’ game of “What would you do here?” when we passed an old boarded up building, or one falling apart with a For Sale sign in the window.  (All weekenders do this, by the way).  “What would you open in there?”  “What would you turn that into?”  Sometimes the place was crying out to be a bookstore, or a restaurant, or a wine shop.  But usually, through my eyes, every building wanted to bake baguettes and sell coffee.

At some point we sadly had to come to terms with the fact that we had outgrown our little Bethel house on the hill.  So we went hunting again in 2011, this time with kids in the backseat, and found one that another young couple from New York had gutted, renovated, and rebuilt ten years earlier.  And in a strange twist of fate, it was right up the road from the White Victorian with the black shutters that we lost in that bidding war.  The same couple that beat us out for it in 2002 was still weekending there, now with their two kids, only a few months older than our two kids.  I had to move on quickly from hating their guts because they were about to become our best friends.

We called Jay Epstein to see if he could help us with our closing again, but learned that Jay had passed away one year earlier.  His office was now closed, his kids had all grown up and moved away, and the house was for sale.  We drove by it every time we went to town to pick up groceries.  Sometimes Michael and I would peek through the front bay windows to see if we could spot the little conference room where we signed those papers in 2002.  And we would tell the kids the story and they would roll their eyes and point out that rotted wood was falling off the building.

Fast forward to the summer of 2016.  We return from Spain and I retreat to Jeffersonville with the kids, up to our happy place for gardening, grilling, swimming, summer camps, and refinishing old furniture from yard sales.  The summer also includes driving by Jay Epstein’s old house every day wondering who is going buy it and fix it up and turn it into a coffee shop.  Who is going to put a new roof on and fix the broken shingles and paint it and bring it back to life?

Sometimes it's nice to zone out, isn't it?  Sometimes it's nice to get no reception on your phone.  These are the precious moments to daydream, like when you are sitting in your car in the parking lot of Peck's staring across the street at an old run-down house and imagining it in various shades of mint green.  And after about an hour of this you might say to yourself: "Didn't my husband just fulfill his Spanish Fiesta Siesta?  I think it's my turn now to do something completely ridiculous."

Semana Santa

On Friday, March 25th, we flew back to Granada from Marrakesh.  Lucky for us, we landed early in the day and even luckier for us, although it was Good Friday, the grocery stores were open!  Can I get an amen?!  This is all so very lucky for us because we discovered we were locked out of our house.  We left the garage door opener in the last rental car that we returned 10 days ago and neither Michael nor I remembered to bring a key to the front door.

Plan A: Lauren, Clio and Willa try to break in with a credit card and a bobby pin while Michael calls around trying to track people down on a holiday weekend.  

(Michael leaves a lot of voice mails while I teach my kids how to break & enter, but we are still locked out so we move on to Plan B.  

Plan B: Go Shopping.

A few hours later, after filling the car with groceries, we finally hear back from Rosario, the owner of our house.  She tells us that we are, again, in luck.  Her 90 year-old father has a spare key.  We drive to his apartment and the girls are shocked, though Michael and I are not, that picking up a spare key from an elderly man in Granada takes about 45 minutes to an hour.  There are many pleasantries to exchange (and dialogue to be translated).  We have to go out on the balcony and see the view and then the piano and then meet the eleven grandchildren that are visiting from Madrid.

But finally we are back in our house, the groceries are put away, the luggage is inside, and a load of laundry has begun.  But don't even think about getting in your pajamas and calling it a day because it is Good Friday and there are parades in town and we must go see them.  For we have heard many, many things about these parades - that they are quite a spectacle, authentically Spanish, specifically Andalusian, a major tradition, and are not to be missed.  (No, we can't we just watch a YouTube video of it on our laptop, I already asked).

“Parade” is probably not an accurate translation since it will connote to my American friends and family something along the lines of big bands, big balloons, smiles and waving, beer, and tissue paper on top of flat-bed trucks.  But what if I said “Penance Procession?”  Now that sounds fun.

During Semana Santa, each church in the city has a scheduled time to parade their paso from their church to the large cathedral in the center of town.  Pasos are floats depicting either Jesus, Mary, a saint, or scenes from the gospels related to the Passion of Christ or the Sorrows of Virgin Mary, some of them are centuries old  We stare in wonder and my kids have some questions.

Clio: “Mom, how long was Jesus on the cross?”

Me: I can't remember, honey.  A few hours or maybe a couple of days or something like that.

Clio: That long?  (slight pause)  He must have been really bored.

Me: (speechless)

Clio: “Mom, at school I learned that Jesus was god.”

Me: “Ok.”

Clio: “Was he god?”

Me: (trying to figure out what to say)

Clio: "Mom?"

Me: “For the next six months, yes.”

Clio: “So if he was god, why couldn’t he just get himself off the cross?”

Me: "Clio, eat your ham."


And then there were my questions about a woman that I see depicted all over the city – in windows, on tee shirts, in posters hanging on walls and doors and cash registers, in plastic molds hanging above a bar, above a slot machine - e-v-e-r-ywhere.

Lauren: "Who is that?"

Michael: "Who is who?  The Virgin Mary?"

Lauren: "That’s the Virgin Mary?  She's so fancy.  When I was in Kindergarten I was the Virgin Mary in the Christmas play and I had to wear an old blue sheet with a rope tied around my waist.  I didn't get to wear that awesome get-up."
Michael: (trying desperately to ignore his wife)
Lauren: "I'm kind of scared to ask you this, but what is she crying about?" 
Michael: "Are you kidding me??  She’s crying over the death of her son, Jesus.  Have you heard of him?"
Lauren:  "Yes, I have heard of Jesus, but let me just say that I watch the news and that is not what a woman looks like when she has lost her child.  That’s what a woman looks like when she’s watching a Meg Ryan movie.  So you'll forgive me if I'm a little confused."

And while we are on the topic of confusing religious symbols, we have to talk about the nazarenos for a minute - the “penitents” who walk behind the pasos during the penance procession.  They carry candles or crosses, some walk barefoot, some carry shackles and chains on their feet.  Serious stuff.  Bear in mind, a single procession can last hours, not only because the procession goes slowly through the streets but then they have to walk back.  (I can't imagine some of them don't just ditch and just jump in cab).  But most notably, and disturbingly for Americans, the nazarenos wear long robes and tall, conical hats that cover their faces and hide their identities.

So now you have to imagine seeing “penitents” completely out of context, for example in a gift store as a figurine that you can buy and take home with you as a souvenir.  You will, for a very brief moment, feel like you are having a small heart attack, and you may, in fact, be dying a little inside.  Or maybe you will wonder if you are hallucinating from the all the jamon you ate the night before.

Our American friends who have visited this year see these guys on the shelf while we are souvenir shopping and then look around anxiously for me, with horror and wtf in their eyes, desperate to confirm what they are seeing.  “Um, Lauren…???”  "It's ok, it's ok," I tell them.  "Everything's going to be alright.  It’s a religious figure.  No, I'm not lying to you?  But I do find it's best not to touch them.  Should we move on?  Look, there are glittery elephants and sparkly pillowcases over here.  Hey!  Do you want to go see Cellphone Jesus??!!

Here's one last thing - our video from the evening, in all it's wobbly glory:

 

Camels, Goats, Sand

While on the African continent, we wanted to make it out to a desert.  But instead of the long drive out and back again with two kids, we decided to opt for something "close enough."  La Pause was recommended to us - 45 minutes outside of Marrakesh and it touts "no electricity!" as one of it's draws.  That's about as "roughin it" as I was willing to go and two days there was going to be my max.

La Pause, like most locations in Morocco, is designed to keep you cool.  And, more to the point, designed for you to enjoy warm-weather related activities - camel rides, horse rides, ultimate Frisbee.  Meals are served in the open air, and who really needs hot water when it's so hot out???  Well, if you happen to be guests there during the two and a half days of the year that they experience a cold-spell and a rainy-spell together, it turns out hot water would be nice.  And so would heat.  But what a great chance to play endless rounds of Rummy 500 (which became Rummy 1000 and then Rummy 1500) with your kids, chase a lot of animals, read by candlelight, and dream about the hot baths that you are not taking.

A word or two about riding a camel.  I am going to argue that about 15 minutes is all you really need.  I went past the 15 minute mark and payed for it dearly by way of two big bruises on my bum.  Toward minute 30 I had to lean heavily forward onto Clio to try to get the weight off my ass and around minute 45 I found it helped with the pain if I scrunched up my face and winced.  I was very, very close to jumping off the damn thing and walking the rest of the way back but I was six feet up in the air and I had visions of a broken ankle.  You will be relieved to hear I did not embarrass you and jump off a moving camel.  The ride mercifully ended.

We were greeted at La Pause with mint tea (as you are in most locations in Morocco).  The kids never got into it, but Michael and I loved it, especially since our days were cold and overcast and decidedly un-desert-like.  I lost track of how much mint tea we drank.

And then we decided to "explore the questions of the desert" a little bit before lunch.  Like: "Exactly how close can you get to a camel?" 

For lunch, another amazing chicken tagine meal.

After lunch, we played a few more hands of Rummy and then the kids started to fight so we went off to explore again.  This time in the opposite direction.  (Killing time until the next meal, basically).

Despite the weather, La Pause was glorious.  Morocco was glorious.  I'm thinking it might actually be one of my favorite places on Earth.