Two years ago we sold our condo and moved into a rental. Then we sold our business.(Don’t panic not the books, retreats, and writing one!) Then we sold one of our cars. Then we sold most of our furniture. Then I distributed all but two shelves full of books I have cherished my entire life so someone else can fall in love with them. We gave away all kinds of stuff that I can now call crap. I mean, seriously, how many plates and glasses and shirts does one need? It’s interesting what one decides to save when this is going on. I destroyed decades of writing–magazines, newspaper articles, columns…I mean holy shit I have been prolific! I saved manuscripts, notes from novels that I might now be able to finish, lots of rocks, the first gift my father ever gave my mother – a lovely gold lighter and cigarette holder, the first note from a publisher who said, “Please send us the entire manuscript. We love this book called The Elegant Gathering of White Snows“, and just a few other treasures.
I am writing this from the top of a mountain in Colorado inside of a sweet little 750 sq. foot cabin. Today it snowed, rained, hailed and then sleeted and I am loving every drop of water that falls from the sky. Yes, it’s May, but this is Colorado. We have placed bird feeders everywhere and I am constantly running from one little room to the next (Not far!) to watch them like a toddler who just figured out where the candy is hidden. I can sleep with the windows open again, turn in a circle and see mountains everywhere, tilt my head up in the dark and see twinkling stars that are not diminished by a zillion unnecessary lights, and my boots are by the door waiting for my twice daily hikes into adjacent National Forest lands that stretch for thousands of miles.
Longing for a place or a person or an experience can kill you or make you seriously ill. If we listen to our own hearts and souls we know what we need to do to sustain them beyond the ordinary. Change is not always easy, but I have found that it’s easier to live as if anything is possible…because it is, but it ain’t going happen if you just sit there.
I’m going to write my ass off up here and share some of my adventures with you. Wait until you hear about my trip to the town dump with my son, how we get water, and how we get up the long gravel and very steep driveway.
And the sun just came out!
