The real estate agent and I walked one side of the property line, down to a corner to a small stream. We cut up through the woods, startling some wild turkeys and a couple deer.

I was hooked by then, hooked by the sweetness of the spring day, and by the possibility of having a few acres of land. But my first sight of the house stopped me in my tracks.

Since the 1980s, I’d been buying fixer uppers, renovating and selling them, in the hopes of someday owning a farm with a little acreage. At the time I lived in a ranch house on 1 acre. Was this old farm my next project?

It was in very poor condition. A large area of the tin roof was covered in roofing tar in a largely failed attempt to stop leaks. Several of the windows were sections of old sliding glass doors, laid on their sides and screwed into place. Many of the old red clapboard siding boards clung askew to the house. The grass was higher than the windows, and the largest poison ivy vine I’d ever seen covered most of the front porch.

Inside was not much better. The kitchen was little more than a sink, with bureaus holding pots, pans and dishes. The refrigerator perched at the edge of rotten area of floor, where dirt showed through the hole. A crooked, tiny staircase with pie-shaped steps led upstairs to a maze of small rooms, where wasps and bees buzzed, and mice dove for the corners.

Was this house in my future? What was more important, house or land? I closed on the farm in late June. A contractor installed a metal roof and sent a crew to work on siding. It was my job to stay ahead of his crew, by tearing off the old siding, repairing rotten areas and framing out for windows.

Day after day, I started at daybreak and worked until dark. Some days I felt miserable, and despairing, yet on some days it was as if I was watching myself, detached, observing. Look how hard you can work, I coached myself. Yes, you’re not good at any one thing, but destruction? That you can do. Look how hard you are trying.

One evening I was relaxing, taking stock of the day’s injuries, and thought to look around for my dog Josey. He was sitting on what passed for the front deck those days, just sheets of plywood laid across the framing. So, I joined him, drank a chocolate milk and we watched the sunset. There were rabbits all over the yard and we could smell a cookout, someplace close. As I sat there with my dog buddy, I remembered to enjoy the peacefulness.

A few weeks later, I was insulating, wrapping basement pipes in tubes of foam and stuffing insulation along the outside walls. In the house, where the old drafty windows remained, I covered them in plastic. Fall was fast approaching; I’d gotten a whiff of it in the air.

It takes time, this insulating, sometimes a lifetime. Little by little, hurt by hurt, we chink ourselves against the disappointments and goodbyes. Before you know it, you’ve finished insulating, and have reached a point where nothing gets in, and nothing out.

I had covered the bathroom window in plastic, and looking through it reminded me of looking into those little shoe box scenes we used to make in grade school. You’d make a trap door in the lid at one end and bend it up, to let in a little light. You’d cut a peep hole in the other end and cut out shapes of people or things in cardboard, to make little scenes inside.

You could create any little world you wanted.

I believe it’s still possible to do that. We can create any world we want, because the stuff of our lives, people, dogs, houses, neighborhoods, jobs, trails, mountains, gives us back what we bring to them. Love fearlessly, greet each day in good spirits, work hard, be faithful and a good listener, try your best, make time to play, share generously, dream, and you’ll continuously add those qualities to the sum total of your experiences. You’ll make your own little world, your haven.