El Castillo
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Year-End Letter December 2007
Since the December 2006 year-end letter, David and I have experienced some very major changes in our lives. Our house out in El Rancho finally sold, and we moved into El Castillo Retirement Residences, a life-time care community located right in the very heart of downtown Santa Fe, the historic core of the city. This was also the year we both had big birthdays - David turned 70 and I turned 65.
Now to flesh out the story a bit. In last year’s letter I went through some of the travails of trying to sell a house in the Pojoaque Valley, with issues of water rights, road access, and native American claims. By the end of 2006 we were feeling pretty hopeless about moving on with our life’s plans. And then, through a chance conversation with an acquaintance at a movie in January, a couple who had been looking unsuccessfully for an affordable house learned of our place, fell in love with it virtually at first sight, and despite a few crises along the way, closed on the house on March 2. We worked out a “rent-back” agreement with the buyers that allowed us to stay on, as renters, until May 6, the day we left for David’s 70th-birthday celebratory trip to Europe (more later). The rent-back provision was absolutely critical, since after three failed contracts on the house, there was no way we were going to pack up, dismantle everything, and put our stuff where?, only to discover at the last minute that the buyers decided to back out. Our buyers turned out to be wonderful people – they even decided to buy a significant amount of our household goods that we were not planning to take with us – everything from outdoor furniture and pots to garden equipment and supplies, to kitchen gadgets, and major indoor furniture. We have, over the course of the months since the sale of the house become friends with them, not entirely unsurprisingly, since they are friends of a friend of ours. So this was a classic case of “All’s well that ends well.”
It was a real relief to sell the house, both at a personal level and in terms of larger issues. Personally, it meant we could move forward with plans we had had for many years to begin a new and different life. In terms of larger issues, we sold our house just as the housing downturn was reaching a critical point and house sales nationally were plummeting. From friends in Santa Fe, we have become very aware of how rough the situation is right here, and we suspect it is pretty much the same story throughout the country.
We were fortunate that when our house finally did sell, El Castillo had pretty much exactly what we were looking for. Our plan had always been to have a “main” or “living” apartment that was a “two-bedroom,” and then a second “office” apartment – a one-bedroom - which would be primarily David’s space – a combination office (in the “bedroom”) and art space where some of his largest art works could be hung. Lo and behold, it all became available just when we needed it. Two one-bedrooms, adjacent to each other, were vacant in the “West” building, which would be combined to become our main apartment (No. 608) and a one-bedroom in the “East” building (No. 422). They are about 500 feet apart. They are both on the 2nd floor, which means lighter and airier, and the office apartment faces onto the swimming pool in the courtyard, which is perfect for David, who loves to swim every day during the warmer months when the pool is open.
Though we had the apartments we needed, we still had an extraordinary amount of work ahead of us, and it is by no means over yet. For Apartment 608, there was a total renovation, which involved knocking out the common walls between the two former one-bedroom apartments, and changing the lay-out entirely to fit our needs. El Castillo contributes a fixed amount towards renovation each time a living unit changes hands, but anything beyond that is the residents’ financial responsibility. We decided that if we were going to be living here for a fairly long time (hopefully) as about the youngest residents moving in, we would make it a place we would like. The office apartment, Apartment 422, we took essentially as is, since it had just had a basic renovation completed by someone who then backed out.
Our lives have been very frenetic ever since. We had three major things going on in March and April:
· Preparing to vacate our house within 9 weeks – this was a huge undertaking, given all we had accumulated over time, but fortunately we had begun downsizing years before;
· Planning the renovation at El Castillo with the general contractor and determining design decisions and materials (flooring, countertops for kitchen and two bathrooms, wall colors, structural issues, plumbing, etc., etc., etc.) – this meants informing ourselves of many product options and endless shopping excursions;;
· Getting ready for our trip to Europe for the month of May.
Obviously we got it all done, but was it a mad, mad time. Further complicating the picture, since our apartment was not due to be habitable until July 1 (eventually that date got pushed back to mid-August), we had to find somewhere to stay after returning from Europe. We couldn’t live in Apt. 422 in the interim, because it became the repository for everything that we took with us from El Rancho, and was filled, floor to ceiling with boxes and furniture, as was the shower stall. We carved out just enough space in 422, to set up a minimally-functioning office, and have access to toilet and sink, but that was about it. So we worked out house-sitting arrangements with three different sets of friends that took us from May 30, when we returned from Europe, until we could occupy our main apartment (where additional work continued after we could sleep in it (on camping mattresses, no less!) and at least take showers. Over the fall months, it gradually came together, with our last major furniture just having arrived after a 3-month wait, and thus we have just begun to put up art (in both apartments) and smaller objets d’art (tchotckes to most of us) now that the overall floor plan has been worked out.
Inevitably, this has been a time for major changes in a number of ways. I created my own office in the main apartment (my first home office, really), while David has his office in Apartment 422, so this means separate computers, instead of sharing, as we have all the past years. I made the plunge and in early November, got a 24-inch iMac from The Apple Store with the brand new Leopard operating system, and all the other bells and whistles, and I am now going through the learning curve as I switch from being a lifetime PC user to a Mac devotee. It is an exciting, impressive experience, even if I go through periods of panic and stress, which I have definitely been doing (in part due to some minor equipment problems). It has been a lot of fun to set up my own home office, in part because I was working until September 2006, and a work office was all I needed. I finally have my own e-mail address, and we now (FINALLY!!!) have high-speed DSL Internet connected to the iMac.
We are also upgrading our audio-video equipment, setting up a part of our main apartment as a music / movie area. We’re getting new components including a DVD player-recorder (we’ve been hobbling along with our old VCR up to now!) and a wall-mounted flat-screen TV, superior telephone equipment, voice mail and the like.
Of course there has been, and continues to be, an endless series of chores – new light fixtures, many wall-mounted items, problems with the renovation that only show up months after it was completed. We thought retirement was when time opened up to create new opportunities for personal growth, but this settling in phase has been one of the busiest of our lives. I barely seem to have time to read the daily newspaper.
I would have to say that in making such a major change at this stage of one’s life, it can consume upwards of 3 to 4 years, beginning with starting the downsizing of one’s possessions, going through the accumulated memorabilia, continuing through fixing up of a house in preparation for its sale, marketing the house, moving out, and setting up a new place for the rest of one’s life. It is something I would only want to have to do one time. For us, at least, we are convinced we are in the place we want to be, but whew!, what a ceaseless, demanding effort.
It is becoming obvious that we made a wise decision by moving into a lifetime-care community, even if I find it a bit strange to be 65, feeling at the peak of health and fitness (for my age) and yet in a place where the average age is probably somewhere in the 80’s and many residents are well into their 90’s. This, needless to say, has involved certain adjustments, but at the end of the day, it is basically the place we live, and we can determine the degree to which we interact within the community versus continue our lives outside of it. This requires some thought and effort, but while we were nervous about it initially, on the whole we’ve been able to manage our degree of involvement fairly successfully. I am sort of viewed as the rambunctious kindergartner of the place, running around all the time, inadequately dressed against the cold, but regarded with a sort of benign fondness for my boundless energy.
We “bought into” Apt. 422 in late March, and Apt. 608 on May 31, though in reality one has no actual equity. What we have bought instead of equity is pre-paid health care and the guarantee that we will be taken care of until we die, as El Castillo has both assisted living and nursing home components (and is also tightly linked to hospice care). So while we have no true ownership, we do get significant tax breaks, since approximately 40% of the buy-in cost and 40% of the monthly maintenance fees are considered pre-paid health expenses and thus tax-deductible (after the 1st 7% of adjusted gross income) per the Internal Revenue Service.
What do we get in exchange for a significantly higher monthly cost of living (especially as we have two separate apartments, something no one else here has)? We get the equivalent of one meal/day (that is, 31 meals in a 31-day month) divided up however we wish. Food is excellent, sophisticated, and quite healthy. We find that one large meal per day is more than adequate, along with a simple breakfast and snack, which we can prepare in our own kitchen. Should we go away for a week or two, we double up on meals in the dining room, taking some breakfasts there to “make up” for days we have been away.
We have an excellent maintenance crew that is capable of fixing most anything and helping us out on all kinds of matters that go beyond strictly maintenance, such as hooking up computers and TVs, hanging large pictures, and the like. What a relief from the days of home ownership out in the country, where we were responsible for everything, and often at great expense, since neither of us is mechanical. And the peace of mind that comes with this change is incalculable -- I am literally sleeping much better than I used to. To give added emphasis to this point, this past January, just as the folks who eventually bought our house first appeared on the scene, our furnace had a major melt-down, so to speak. We had just returned from a wonderful 2-week trip to the west coast of Mexico, and were without heat or hot water for weeks during what turned out to be a very cold winter. After 4 weeks of intense stress and inconvenience, we got it fixed (to the tune of $6k+) which was essential for us to live in the house and, of course, to sell it, It was an experience that reminded us, if we needed any reminding, of why we were moving into town.
We can, in principle, travel more easily, simply locking the door and taking off when we wish to. This is soooo…. much easier than making all the arrangements for an isolated house before taking off, and we no longer worry if we will return to some kind of unforeseen disaster. What a load off our minds.
We’ve come to find the residents of El Castillo some of the most fascinating people we’ve ever met – people who have unimaginably rich professional and personal lives, and as a result this is a most unusual community. Despite the high average age, folks here seem to keep mentally and physically in shape to a degree I have not known in other retirement communities (for example, the one my parents were at in Florida). Everyone is friendly and looks after one another. We have an excellent library/computer room – the quality of the donated books reflects the broad intellectual interests of the people who live here. There is a fitness center, modestly equipped, but sufficient for me to work out there 4x/week (at 5:00 a.m., when I have it all to myself!). And most delightful of all, there is an area of the property designated “the residents’ garden” and I am chair of the residents’ garden committee.
This residents’ garden had been neglected for some years as the residents taking care of it became frail and infirm. So this summer I spent cleaning it out and tidying it up – no trivial job, but I have hopes of planning a quite attractive planting scheme for the spring. Several relatively new and/or young residents have joined me on the committee and residents have definitely noticed improvements. So though I no longer have a large property to take care of at our El Rancho house, I still can keep a hand in gardening. El Castillo even gives me a small annual budget to work with, and has agreed to pay for some of the one-time costs I have outlined in a garden improvement project plan. There is great potential for making the garden a very inviting place for all.
For us, the most exciting change is that we live in downtown Santa Fe, literally 3 minutes walk from the Plaza. In fact, if one had to pick a location that was perfectly situated to walk to most everything the core of Santa Fe has to offer, El Castillo would be precisely at that location. Both David and I continue to pinch ourselves in disbelief that we are so fabulously located. We walk to cultural events, art gallery openings, and on those rare occasions when we go, to restaurants. (They are rare occasions because we basically eat at a restaurant every day so “going out” is no longer something special!). We are discovering Santa Fe as a wonderful city in ways that simply were not possible when we had to drive in 22 miles from El Rancho. We can go to one-hour events spontaneously –usually out of the question when we lived out of town. We regularly take walks to explore neighborhoods and the city is opening up secrets unknown to us in the 15 years we lived out of town, as we poke down lanes, alleys, and over garden walls. I do more hiking than before, work out in the fitness room, and had my 1983 Trek bike from my Washington, DC bike-commuting days reconditioned and use it to get around, or to go on bike rides in warmer weather. So we are actually getting much more exercise than we did before. In short, despite the many adjustments, and the seemingly endless amount of time and chores imposed on us to get set up, we think we have made a very smart change in our lives and overall, are very pleased.
To change topics, we decided that with both of us having big birthdays this year, we would each get to pick a special trip for us both. Well, we realized with everything else going on, and all the expenses entailed, we would do one of those trips this year, and defer the other to a later time. David picked his trip, and that was the one we went on in May. He had been to a number of small northern European cities, mostly those with interesting art attractions, that I had not been to, and had said for years how much he would like to see them again, but with me this time. And that’s what we did. We spent two wonderful, perfect spring days in New York first (where as luck would have it, I spent a day with my grand-daughter), and then continued on to Paris for four days, including a day excursion to the largest Gothic cathedral in France, at Amiens. From there we went to Strasbourg and Colmar, both in Alsace, before continuing on to Konstanz, Germany, on Lake Constance (Bodensee) adjoining the Swiss border. Then to Ghent and Bruges in Belgium, ending in Amsterdam. Strasbourg, Colmar, Ghent and Bruges all have rich artistic treasures, and are beautiful cities to boot. Konstanz provided access to magnificent islands and small towns on Lake Constance, as well as a day trip to St. Gallen, Switzerland, with the finest Baroque church in Europe as well as a magnificent library of the Middle Ages.
The deferred trip, my birthday splurge, has finally been settled on – a 36-day monster safari trip covering Botswana, Namibia, Victoria Falls, Kenya, and Tanzania, now scheduled for an early May 2008 departure. I figured, for a once in a lifetime trip, we’d book a somewhat extended adventure. Stay tuned for the 2008 year-end report. (Also, you might keep in mind any friends looking for an apartment to stay in in Santa Fe during that time frame.)
Perhaps most memorable was the Isenheim Altarpiece in Colmar, by Mathias Grünewald, one of the greatest works of Western art, and the rationale for an entire trip David made many years ago to Europe on his own. We spent an entire day in the museum that housed this great work (along with many others) – a former monastery – and over half the time was spent just in the presence of the Altarpiece. When we arrived at opening time (9:00 a.m.) there was a BBC film crew all set up around the Altarpiece doing a program on the greatest art works portraying the Crucifixion, and this was definitely on their list. They used the two of us in the filming and promised to send the completed DVD (though we have not seen it, needless to say).
We happened to be in France and Germany for “asparagus season” and had a few quite wonderful meals built around asparagus (almost always white). In short, it was a great trip and we were there before the euro’s exchange rate shot up completely out of sight.
We also did a two week excursion at the end of July to Montana (by car) where we went on a combo horseback riding / rafting trip, as well as stayed on the magnificent ranch, 50 miles from Bozeman, of friends of ours from the Pojoaque Valley. While we saw many wonderful things along the way and at our destination, unfortunately, this was the year that forest fires burned all over Montana, and the air was terribly smoky, which substantially compromised the experience.
In the second half of August we went to the mid-Atlantic to see various friends and family and to celebrate a major birthday of a dear friend. We had a great time despite August not being the month I would most want to be in that part of the country. In October I visited my daughter and granddaughter in Connecticut as well as friends in New England. My granddaughter becomes more amazing with each passing day, but what is a grandfather supposed to say?
We’ve done some camping and hiking trips, but had to cancel one we were very excited about to some of the more remote national parks in Nevada and California in September, due to what now appears to have been a false alarm in regard to David’s health. Still, we spent 4 days hiking and camping out of Crested Butte, Colorado in July, and in southern New Mexico in late October, plus lots of spectacular day hike trips. We had a very snowy winter, so I got out to do a number of snowshoeing day trips.
As old-time campers – I often think this has the same ring as “aging hippies” - one of the frustrations for us has been how dramatically camping has changed since I was much younger. I haven’t backpacked for several years – as much for lack of companions as anything else – but we do continue to car camp, that is, to camp at designated campgrounds in state and national parks, national forests, BLM holdings, and the like. We tent camp, and it is now very difficult to find “tent only” areas. Usually we are surrounded by a sea of huge RVs, fitted out with all the comforts of home, generators going, so that visually and aurally, we struggle to connect with the great outdoors. A few campgrounds have tent-only areas, but all too few. This approach to being outdoors seems to represent a quickly dying one. All the same we continue to try to connect with what remains of the magnificent West. If I’ve ticked off any committed RVer’s, so be it!
Looking beyond our own lives, the scene nationally and internationally continues to be very discouraging from my vantage point. There is, finally, a spreading consciousness about human impact on the environment and particularly on climate change. While there are countless efforts moving forward to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, I am struck with how, on the macro-scale, the negatives are far outweighing the positives. China and India are growing at a phenomenal rate, and at long last want the benefits of industrialization that the Western countries have long enjoyed. Coal-fired power plants are being built at a rapid pace, especially in China, and the populations of these two enormous countries want automobiles. Such developments seem to be far outstripping any reductions we are contemplating. Forests are being decimated in the Amazon and Asia. I ask myself if humans, collectively as a species, can figure out a way to pull together to make dramatic changes that will stave off disaster. This year, in addition to all the articles I have read, I was fortunate to listen to some powerful and sobering lectures sponsored by foundations and research institutes based in Santa Fe, and the picture presented was a chilling one (no pun intended) indeed. The experts who spoke were not being alarmist, but very objectively laying out what we are likely to be in store for. We are already seeing dramatic changes to the world we have known and loved – the only one, really, we have – and who knows what awaits us in just the next 10 years, much less the next 100 (very short time frames on a geological scale)?
Not only has my own country, once thought of as a leader in cutting edge thinking, become a kind of lumbering behemoth (for a comparison in tired thinking, recall Brezhnev’s Soviet Union) – and not only when it comes to the global climate crisis, but in every area needing new ideas and new approaches, but we actually seem to be going backwards – scientific research, public health, international relations and cooperation, education, immigration reform, gay and women’s rights, contraception, prison reform, economic solvency, a rational approach to our defense budget, civil liberties, environmental protection, infrastructure, constitutional protections, and the esprit of public service –all are in a sad state, and it is unclear whether the damage is entirely reversible.
Our political system, as far as electing public officials, makes me despair. Everything is reduced to gotcha’s and sound bites – we have so many critical national and international issues – and not one candidate seems able and willing or unafraid to present ideas that haven’t been carefully tested to not fall into a trap by which the candidate can be hung out to dry. More is spent in our country than anywhere else on campaigns, they go on almost continuously from one election to another, and yet, they have become mind-bogglingly trivial at a time when we have so many serious issues to confront. When I think it cannot get any worse, it does.
I did not imagine, as I sense many others did not, that in just 7 years, our country could fall on such low times. So many of us felt pride that our country was seen not only as a leader but as a beacon representing (if not always living up to) the highest ideals of the human spirit. And how deeply we have fallen in the estimation of a majority of the world’s population. Many of us dream of when the present national administration will end, but I think the damage has been so great that it is hard to imagine a full recovery. I would love to be proven wrong, but I am not seeing many signs of hope, sad to say.
Here in the Southwest, we’ve had a phenomenal fall and early winter, if you can call it that. Gorgeous weather day after day, warm days, coolish nights. Once we all would have thought it was a special blessing to get such a break. But now most of us are thinking: drought, global warming (day time temperatures 100 higher than normal, night time temperatures 150 above normal, day after day). I do try to enjoy them, and give myself a break from worry, even though deep down I think I am living on borrowed time.
Santa Fe is about as environmentally aware as any place in the U.S. In recent years, in the face of on-going drought, we’ve reduced per capita water use to close to the lowest in the country. But we face the same issues as so many other U.S. cities – urban sprawl combined with the super-wealthy moving into high-end, protected enclaves where they spend only a portion of each year. The growth threatens to tax our meager water supplies beyond capacity. Our latest crisis is a plan by a Houston company to drill on 65,000 acres of county land for oil and gas deposits – few things have galvanized the county’s population like this threat to some beautiful and fragile spaces. Throughout the country and the world, environmental threats seem to be far outpacing the few “success” stories we all want to hear more of.
Now that I am retired, I am trying to give back, a little, to the community, through the first stirrings of volunteer efforts. Given the upheaval and demands of our move into El Castillo, this has not been as consistent as I had hoped, but I have begun.
In January, I began volunteering one day a week (sometimes it turns out to be half a day) at the Museum of International Folk Art, perhaps the premiere museum of its kind anywhere. The Museum has received a time-limited grant to create high quality digital images of its enormous collection and link them to its cataloging records of the items. I’ve gotten to handle and work with a fascinating array of materials and come to like the staff, both paid and volunteer. I am about to begin working with the museum librarian to develop a simplified but public database of special materials that would be electronically accessible by schools and similar institutions around the state, and in the process, pilot a more standardized approach to cataloging the materials than currently exists in the main catalog. It should be exciting.
I’ve just completed another year as a volunteer for the Santa Fe Film Festival, doing a variety of tasks – box office, ushering, and preparing for the awards ceremony and celebratory party. Each year the Festival gets a larger array of interesting, off-beat films, and so being right in the thick of things is a lot of fun for the weeks leading up to the Festival as well as during it.
I also was a volunteer, for the first time, at our incredibly exciting International Folk Art Market, which in just four years has grown to be one of the best events going on in Santa Fe (it’s always the weekend after 4th of July weekend). This year I was an artist’s assistant at the double booth of two traditional Brazilian woodblock artists who illustrate the cheap, popular literature of the Northeast of Brazil. Since I lived in Brazil for three years over 25 years ago, this was an exciting opportunity. And I continued as a docent for the annual two-weekend garden tours put on by the Santa Fe Botanical Garden, something I’ve been doing for many years, as it is the main fundraising event for the SFBG.
In the hopes that by April or so of next year, our apartment set-up issues finally are largely behind us, that my new computer works free of problems and I know how to turn on the flat-screen TV, that all the bugs in the renovation have been resolved, etc., I would like to expand my volunteer efforts to include at least one community organization that serves the underserved – homeless, battered women, children going through a variety of problems. Lord knows, there is plenty to choose from.
And of course, there are my plans to overhaul and improve the resident garden here at El Castillo. I might work one dayAnd we have lots of travel plans for next year, this year having been somewhat subdued, given all the other big developments in our lives. So, who knows?
Then I think about taking courses in great books, expanding my personal reading, at which I’ve been lagging, given how little time there seems to be. I don’t like to think in terms of “retirement” but of being in a somewhat different phase of life, with different challenges, and different things to learn. However sad I feel about the overall state of the world, I know there are wonderful people all over who are trying to make a difference, and in my own terribly modest way, I’d like to be on that side of the aisle, rather than just giving up. It is a difficult balancing act, but one must always try, and I hope that is what I am continuing to do.
I hope this finds you well and I wish a healthy, happy, and satisfying year ahead. It should be an interesting ride!
Love,
Ken