Michael Searle and the cottage
Michael Searle died last month, at the age of 59. He was a therapist, a musician, and a cyclist. He was also my beloved neighbor, and this is the eulogy I delivered at his memorial service yesterday in the Finnish Brotherhood Hall of Berkeley:
This is a story about neighborhoods and neighbors, a therapeutic narrative about the people you live close to.
Twenty-three years ago Mike and Julie Searle moved into the house next door to us on Virginia street, and Debby and I have been fortunate to share this corner of the world with them ever since. Their daughters Kyla and Nora and Gemma were born here, and we have enjoyed watching them grow from Totland toddlers into the strong, beautiful young women they are today. The Searles, the whole family, have been the best neighbors one could ever hope for, unfailingly warm and friendly, full of light and life.
But Mike and I got to know each other well only twelve years ago, when we built a cottage together. There's nothing like a shared construction project to get to know someone. Mike needed an extra room for an office, and I needed more storage space, so we decided to build a little two-room structure together in our back yard. A six-week project, we thought, nights and weekends, perhaps including one week of full-time work.
But we didn't want to just throw up a drafty, utilitarian shed. We wanted it to be a beautiful piece of work, a building we would enjoy living with. So we started with a craftsman-style design, cedar-shingled and long-eaved, that complemented our houses and fit in with the neighborhood. We removed the fence between our properties, and set to work, often helped by Julie and Debby and Jim and other friends.
We took care with every step, digging and pouring the foundation, building the walls, roofing, sheetrocking, painting, shingling. And every time we had a choice to make—between the easy and the complicated, between the quick and the long-lasting, between the utilitarian and the beautiful—we made the more difficult choice. Which was also, of course, finally the more satisfying choice.
But it was also the more time-consuming choice. The first six weeks went by, and—surprise—we weren't finished. Then the next six weeks, then the first six months. Weekend after weekend, we continued to put in many hours with our hammers and paintbrushes, sharing the pleasure and the pain of our joint perfectionism. And finally, fifteen months after we began, the office-cum-storage shed was finished. Well, while building it we had called it a shed, but Kyla pointed out that any structure requiring fifteen months of effort should have a more dignified name, and she suggested that we call it a cottage.
So a cottage it became. Finally we were able to start spending our weekends doing other things. That fence separating our properties? We decided not to replace it. Sharing a back yard is easier after you've shared a construction project.
Michael Searle was a builder and a sharer. He built a cottage, but he also built a community here, a circle of friends and neighbors who loved him. He shared fifteen months of work with me, but he also, over the years, generously shared his time and his life with all of us, and we will always remember with affection his generosity and strength, his building and his sharing.
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