It is good to be home.
It is funny to say "home", because absolutely none of my actual "home" is here. My wife and children are not here. The menagerie that makes our house right now is not here. My regular activities - Iaijutsu, gym, rabbit shelter - are not here. Certainly all of my things - what constitutes (at this point) a specialized formidable library on specific subjects and my swords (and, I suppose, all the other paraphernalia that I actually need to live) is not here.
And yet this feels more like home each time I am here.
As it turns out after my concerns last month about the rain, they have had a regular intake of it almost since I left - even during my week here, we are scheduled for starting tomorrow through Thursday. It is not the higher snow we will need, but this may very well keep us green into June (which is traditional) and will certainly help recharge the aquifer, which is all very welcome news. Hopefully this year will be a "normal" fire year, not the explosive potential we have had for the last few.
Also, the grass is starting to grow (which it did not last year). That means mowing, which The Cowboy and The Young Cowboy have offered to do. To Ed's point yesterday, have people that are invested in the property as much as you are is a blessing.
It is still coolish enough for a fire (surprising to me a bit as New Home continues to smolder its way into Summer), which is a pleasant enough thing for me - and still remains novel enough that I enjoy doing it. It certainly has the benefit of not only heat, but a silence that the furnace lacks.
It is odd - I think the thing that makes it feel the most like "home" is the fact that when I am here, the world seems full of possibilities - possibilities not all realizable of course (no-one can do all things), but possibilities. It has sense of being in the fifth grade and set free for the Summer, aware enough that you can go out and do things on your own and cognizant of the fact that you have whole days to fill before you have to trudge back to school. At New Home, there is much less of this sense: the chessboard is set and filled and there are limitations - more, if I am sticking with the analogy, of a weekend away from school. We enjoy the weekends as a break, but we enjoy the Summer more.
Then again, the green of Spring always encourages me in a way that still continues to surprise me after all these years.
Maybe Home is where we feel the world has boundless possibilities. Where we can look at complicated Life choices and decide which are the priorities, and which will have to work themselves out, only with our guidance to a more positive result. Faith and Trust.
ReplyDeleteWhat I gleaned from the book Earth Abides. It doesn't always work, but often enough I pay attention to.
That might not be a bad metric at all - it is true that for myself at least, I am happier where I feel the possibilities are many rather than few, where I will inevitably feel bound up and constrained.
DeleteI did not realize that was in Earth Abides. It has been many years since I read that book.
Well, I sort of 'thought it out'. When the boy he thought would lead them forward to a new age of reason died prematurely, he mourned, then made the decision to take 'baby steps'. He introduced (re-introduced ?) the idea of archery, taught them the rudimentary steps of how they worked and let them move forward from there. It took time, but archery grew back from his small step of introduction.
DeleteI do remember the reintroduction of archery.
DeleteIt is odd. When I first read the book, I thought that sort of technological retreat would be impossible. Now, looking at how technologically focused we have become and at the same time dependent on both the technology and the experts that create and maintain it, I am not at all surprised.
I miss those days when a summer out of school felt nearly endless with possibility. Now I blink and snow is flying again.
ReplyDeleteEd, how was time every that long? In my entire adult life, nothing ever feels that long any more (except meetings, which seem endless). Now even the best of vacations seems like a blink - and here it is, already April.
DeleteYour words about old Home give me hope. Maybe someday, I'll find my place. When it's hot and humid here, I have trouble breathing. I'm realizing that I may not be able to stay. All my close family is here, I don't know where else I could go. It's bitter sweet when I think of it. Bitter to leave all I care about, but the promise of new adventure sounds kinda sweet. There is so much shadow when I look that direction.
ReplyDeleteI am certain that you will STxAR.
DeleteHealth issues are real things. And sometimes, thinking outside of "The Box" is good if for no other reason than an exercise in what is possible.
And to my mind, the sound of an adventure does sound kind of exciting.
❤️
ReplyDeleteThat's about all I can say, TB.
I remember thinking I would never get old or grow up. Now Tim's flies and in a few months I'll be 70. What. The. Heck.
You all be safe and God bless.
Stupid cell phone autocorrect. That was supposed to say "time flies". :)
DeleteRight Linda? The year is already a third gone. What happened here?
DeleteI have had my evening beer, so apply a a filter of gentleness to a working mans view. I lost a true friend a couple years ago, one who would tell me what I needed to know, not what I wanted to hear.
ReplyDeleteSo in his memory, this-
Perhaps you sense what you were "told". You wrote about it recently.
If you sense home, it is where you belong.
Raven, you are long time commenter, so no mediating or commentary needed.
DeleteI appreciate that comment, both from you and on behalf of your friend. I am deeply considering it.
Is the building "The Cabin"? The setting looks idyllic, TB.
ReplyDeleteActually Becki, that is The Barn. The Cabin would be somewhat to our left in the picture.
Delete