Yashunta- what??

Yashuntafun. That is the name of the dirt road we lived on for 355 days from January 20, 2024 – January 10, 2025.

Our house was reflective of the name of the street – old, out-of-the-way, and quirky – and visitors either loved it and were inspired by it, or didn’t say anything. Mature flowering magnolia, the loquat and kumquat, and cypress trees dotted 6 acres, while Crepe Myrtles lined a long, concrete drive. White fences stood gleaming along field edges, where green grass flourished, and pine trees towered. The sunset shone golden over pastures beyond as horses grazed, and onto blooming camilla bushes and vibrant pinta flowers that decorated the house-length brick front porch. Inside, a staircase and bookshelves such as furnished imaginary, old-fashioned English manors, along with room-dividing glass display cases made me dream of displaying tea sets and little baskets with tiny spoons, loose-leaf tea canisters, tea bags and tea towels.

My imagination soared at the sight of the big, drafty old house, and with circumstances what they were – my parents newly moving twelve hours closer to us, onto the very street this rental was listed, and Paul and I not yet having a home after selling our home in Jacksonville and moving to Tallahassee (thank you, Mom and Dad Breedlove!) some months before – gave me a desire to live here, as impossible a dream as it was, and believe me, it was impossible – due to the price, and also the cost, in addition to the expense.

Yet in spite of it not being the best location, and having many quirks which make some homes more difficult to live in than others (insectarium back patio anyone? and kitchen cabinets looking like they should be torn out of the house rather than used to put dishes and food items in), Paul and I agreed on it, the landlords accepted our terms, and we moved in, and made it a home as best as we could, with lots of joy.

The front yard became the official croquet lawn, the “ballroom” had its floor to ceiling shelves filled with books and decorations, and I bought my first chair from a thrift store (okay, chairs), after which my father-in-law gave me the tongue-in-cheek advice that it’s okay to shop at a thrift store “so long as your house doesn’t end up looking like one”!

Being half a mile down a dirt road from my parents after having lived so far away from them was like a dream come true and we often on foot, by one-wheel, or car went visiting. To me, this was the greatest joy of all.

As the year wore on and the weather turned warm, tea by the fire gave way to painting and reading on blankets in the sunshine and breeze. But soon came the heat of summer and the beginning of mowing season. I had never mowed anything beyond a few crooked stripes on our zero-turn mower, but the kids and I had eagerly agreed to do our share of mowing the property as a prerequisite to renting, and so I jumped into mowing a field once a week(ish), which in time felt like no less than one hundred acres. It was startling when pinecones went shooting out of the mower like potatoes from a potato gun, unnerving when the mower would break down or bog down, annoying when the stripes you hoped looked professional only appeared crookeder with every attempt, and then what to show for all the hard work? Itchy dirty dust from head to toe. So, for the other half of the year (in Florida the heat lasts), our outside adventures consisted of mowing six acres and tending the garden infrequently until it wasted away from lack of water. (Not sure why we planted it over 100 feet away from a water source. But we did. I measured with different size hoses I bought until I found one that reached. In addition to the water problem, there was also the issue of finding snakes near the spigot, the remembrance of them keeping us from going anywhere near the hose.)

The drive was long for Paul to and from work, and a sense of unrest grew slowly and steadily, until the thought of renewing the lease on the house became undesirable, and we agreed to move closer to Paul’s work, the kids’ part-time school, and into a home that came with lawn care included in the rent, because there was nothing stopping mowing season from coming again, and nothing stopping me from never mowing that field again. Looking at it, I think that was my biggest reason for agreeing to move. No more mowing six acres. What were once beautiful, rolling, treelined fields with golden sunlight cascading over them, became a source of PTMD (Post Traumatic Mowing Disorder).

Nonetheless. The Yashuntafun house will always be remembered fondly by (most of) us. It was a wonderful year, filled with family, friends, worship gatherings, lots of tea, and coffee from the coffee bar. I spent free days writing my book, had countless conversations in the evening , and watched more than one rainstorm from the beautiful bay window.

We sprouted beans, planted flowers, climbed trees, picked kumquats, danced on the gleaming wood floors of the ballroom, decorated for the holidays, and celebrated four birthdays with parties there.

Our son was able to move back home for a time before getting married and settling in Illinois.

Paul brought home our kitten, Theodore.

Our faith was stretched by paying the rent every month, and we were left in awe of the Lord’s provision for us. Every month we felt another level of accepting the blessing of the Lord that “makes one rich and adds no sorrow to it”! That rent check expanded us and enlarged our capacity, growing our faith.

There were other, less significant learning moments for me personally. For instance I learned that having 12ft tall, wall-to-wall bookshelves isn’t something I ever want again, though it was previously on my bucket list. Turns out getting a book five feet out of reach isn’t as inspiring you would imagine. Fetching the poetry book from the 23rd shelf can make one rather forego reading altogether.

Another bucket list item – an old-fashioned, BBCish home. Not something I ever want again either. There’s something to be said for plain houses with matching walls and floors, and thirty foot distances from one end to the other instead of three hundred. Though I still love all types of houses old and new, the ones I prefer to live in are smaller and newer, at least built after the 80’s. Which -wow – the 80’s were forty years ago.

Wow.

I will always be grateful for our home on Yashuntafun, and to the landlords for accepting our terms and getting the pool up and running for us without any cost at all to us so that the kids would be able to use it. I will never forget that.