Remembering + Refining

The love of this place has been a big engine for us this past year. We look at our small piece of land and continually wonder how best to serve it.

At some point last week, in a roundabout way, Chris suggested that I wasn’t taking enough, or really any, time to write. He was correct, but holy shit, I don’t love to hear it from him. I get the same feedback near constantly from myself. It starts as this repeated internal dialogue about not having much to say, then to not feeling urgent about what I want to say, and finally, to a low, under-the-surface hum of need coupled with resistance. It is predictable, and also relatively intolerable, but manages to eventually get me back in my seat and clacking away again before too long. Spilling the beans. Shoring up my perspective on this life, as it is, here and now.

I have been caught up in a number of things these past few weeks. Some of them real and others of them thought patterns that may or may not fuel my creative mindset. Namely, I had a retreat to facilitate along with the many tasks of preparing our homestead for the impending freezing temperatures of the long Vermont winter. But also, so much tending and driving and mental/physical/emotional presence that my life as mom gifts to me. Some seasons are always full no matter how I slice it and this is one of them. And yet, there is a very real part of my psyche that spends much of this time of the year sitting in front of the fire on the hillside looking out at the mountain and the fading leaves and the light as it folds over the forest and house at an ever earlier hour. I sit there for real sometimes, and almost always in my mind. Looking out while I really look in. Being still.

This fall itself has been generous and easy. As though it knows we could use a little extra time and space to make sure everything is snug before the snow. In its slowness, it has been more beautiful than I can recall from any of the handful of previous autumns on this hillside. The colors came in early and have stayed long, still lingering even now. Snow has arrived at the higher elevations and there is a gradient I have never seen before as white peaks fade into and across the red and amber slopes. The locals are calling in “snowliage” and it is incomprehensibly breathtaking. After the first morning of snow up in the mountains, I was driving Eider down into the valley to school, both of us marveling at the beauty of this new colorscape, he said, in a soft voice, “It just keeps getting more beautiful here.” It does. Just when I think that might be impossible. It takes my breath away, again and again, and I cannot believe this is our place in the world. In the very center of the power and beauty of nature. I am so thankful that our children get to witness this wonder. To live inside of it.

The love of this place has been a big engine for us this past year. We look at our small piece of land and continually wonder how best to serve it. We want to tend this small patch into the very best expression we can. One that is symbiotic and also generative. That provides safe harbor and solace for as long as our family calls it home, and further into the future, through generations. So there are choices. There are squeezes we are making in an effort to establish a broader infrastructure and lay a foundation for a landscape and home that form a tighter feedback loop. Energy in and energy out. What that has looked like lately is making some moves that hopefully accommodate the savings required to keep investing here while simultaneously minimizing our footprint. Last week, we traded in the Subaru for a compact EV. This week we contracted, after a multi-year lead-up, to begin the design and build of a small cabin in the clearing adjacent to the orchard. We have been moving projects from the etheric realm solidly into the physical and it is a perfect mix of confidence and doubt. Nevertheless, onward.

In much of life, I stick to the motto “eyes on my own work” and this phase is no different. I want to do well here, regardless of the work of others or any neurotic or judgemental narrative I haphazardly dish out to myself. My mind always wants to convince me about my lack and incompetency and this strategy of one foot in front of the other in my own lane seems to keep me going well enough. This is perhaps one of the biggest boons of getting older, the growing capacity to simply say fuck it to any fear of what others may or may not be thinking about something that has little to nothing to do with anyone but me and this small family. I am forever imperfect, forever leaning toward some slight improvement over however I may have bumbled along the path to here.

So, this morning, I am a mix of looking back and looking forward. Giving thanks while also generating resolve and so onward we go. I hope to be back here soon with some more specifics to unravel, especially relative to mothering and to practice. The work in progress of my life continues to be my fuel. I am in it. Watching and learning; remembering and refining.

xxx,m