I’ll admit this: there have been days of late where I’ve considered telling my baby-to-be to stay put. Don’t come out. You’re better off where you are. Is there room in the womb for me?

There is a foolhardiness to living in a loosely-built house on a bluff, facing the northeast, in the winter in New England. Pipes freeze. Oil burners find themselves motor-deep in freezing waters. The winds threaten to relocate us to the south, just not far enough south to make an improvement. The rain, the snow and the sand conspire to turn our cedar-shingled shack into an iced gingerbread house sprinkled with cinnamon. But not as delightful.

I’m in limbo here — waiting for the next shoe to fall, the next belt to break. Our property is for sale — the house, the land, the golf course. None of it belongs to me, at least not solely to me. No decision can be made without a conference and a consensus. I wait for answers, I wait for commitments, I wait for the ice to thaw. None of which come quickly. In the interim I do very little. So much to do, but so little that can be done.

I love my home — this rented piece of real estate. My home has never been my own, but always been my place. The house and land, both perfectly imperfect, defy description. They are at once the place everyone wants to be, but few know just how to be. Here. This place is a priceless piece tucked frozen in a corner of so many hearts.

This time of year my home is never just one thing for very long. It is deadly still, the ice floes like bored students on a campus lawn. It is deafeningly testy, the wind and cold making every corner of every entity disturbingly angry.

Every now and then I take a walk around the place, out of doors of our small cabin. There must be something I can do, something I can fix, change or improve. But there is nothing. Not even myself. The inertia of my surroundings permeates my being. Nothing will move much until the season says so.

Mostly I stand and stare — at the sea, the house, the trees. There’s not much else to see. But if I stand long enough I can also see the past in the porch of Big Camp, and the future in it too. There are people there, and on the beach below. They are on the dock and in the water. They swing in tandem on the swing, their legs pumping in a lazy unconscious rhythm. This is a summer place — its joys preserved like scallops in freezer packs, waiting for the thaw.

I live here now. Still. But sometime soon I will not. I admit though that I have no idea of the exact meaning of soon. Soon could have been 10 years ago. Soon could be tomorrow. Soon cannot come soon enough. Soon can come far too soon. This is the most timeless place I think I will ever live. If it were a person, it would be ageless.

Everything happens to this place, but nothing changes it. It has seen great joy and its share of disaster. It has frozen, it has burned. But it remains virtually the same. No amount of disease, distraction or detraction alters its face. And no bounty of riches bows its humility. It just is. A great place.

Brad Woodger lives on Chappaquiddick and co-writes the Chappaquiddick column.