Unplanning and Other Hardships
Down on the farm . . .
Things are a little rough. We had a snow and ice storm in late January with temps well below our usual winter cold. All of middle TN suffered great damage with thousands of trees and power lines down. In fact, there were places that looked like a war zone.
In College Grove, a little further south, the ice didn’t hurt us so much, though I had a tree limb fall and bust up a fence. I was out of town visiting a friend in Georgia. Another local friend was checking on the farm for me, though she wasn’t going inside the buildings. I returned on Sunday, January 28, opened the farmhouse kitchen door and . . .
heard the sound of water.
Obviously not good. I didn’t know at that point just how bad it could be.
I went through the kitchen and into the small hallway that leads to the long hallway. My feet stepped in water. At the very end, where the hallway makes a turn to lead to the library, a waterfall was coming from what used to be the ceiling. There was no ceiling anymore.
You know when you see something that shouldn’t be and your brain takes a minute to comprehend what you’re looking at – that’s how it was. I just stared. Water was everywhere – in the hallway, in the bedrooms, in the bathrooms, in the dining room, in the storage room, in the pantry, in the kitchen. Water. Everywhere.
And then my brain caught up with my heart. TURN THE WATER OFF!
There was a tankless water heater in the attic that serviced the Williamson and Tennessee Rooms, one of three water heaters in the farmhouse. A pipe ruptured after freezing and water poured from the rupture point. Since I was out of town, I don’t know how long it poured, but long enough to severely damage the farmhouse.
Almost ALL of our flooring is gone. And the baseboards, and the walls up to about 3 feet, and the tile in the bathrooms, and the vinyl in the storage room, pantry, and kitchen. It all had to go. A mitigation/restoration company spent two weeks drying the place out.
I spend those two weeks crying a lot.
Not from the loss of “things,” (though I admit I really loved that rug in the main hallway), but from the wounding of a dream, my dream of building a place for writers – a safe, inspiring, accepting place that speaks its history and hospitality into the hearts of those who come to stay. It felt overwhelming, painfully so, to see it all destroyed.
But, it’s not really destroyed. It’s only delayed for a few months. I’m working with a contractor, who happens to be a dear friend, to rebuild, repair, and replace all that was damaged. I’m not going to say it will be better than it was because I can’t recreate the history and the old farmhouse feel, so I’ll say it will be different. I’ll also say it will be redone with the purest intention to reopen for writers as soon as possible.
The colony is closed until June. I’m very hopeful that residencies can restart at that time and that once again, the soul of the building will be filled with powerful words from the hearts of beautiful writers. That’s the hope and the goal. I’ve “unplanned” all of my previous plans. Now there’s space to plan something new.
Blessings,
Sandy