We have returned from the weekend away, bringing Forrest home with us. A sense of fulfillment and completion for me, having my family together as a team. The beginning of a well earned summer break for him. Some break. Building, fencing, digging ditch. May sound hard to many, but you know we love it all.
He returns to a house that looks the same as it did when he moved out how long ago, when we all moved out, renting out our home and moving to the Little Cabin to increase our cash flow, trying to create a change that seemed so slow to come. Since then, we moved to around five times, including 1400 miles to northern Washington. And then back again. What a lot of work! And I wouldn’t have it any other way. (Though hiring a moving service seems like a tempting option.) Put super simply, it was all good.
Change. It came, in a big way, and beautifully, and reminds me we are in constant state of change, only sometimes we don’t see it, and other times we may deny it.
And yet, on the surface, it appears we are right where we started. Same beautiful house, hand crafted, all our years of woodwork and refinement, rough and rustic though it still feels, just the way we like it. Warm, welcoming. Few come into our home without noting how “comfortable” it is. The pictures hanging on the wall just where they belong. Sofas, pots, pans, everything in place as it once was. Sounds of the woodstoves crackling, one to heat the house against morning temperatures in the teens, the other to cook our breakfast, Forrest’s favorite in a big cast iron skillet ready to be set in the oven. Steller’s Jays pecking at the same feeder even they too remember right where it used to be.
And the view from the window as it has been for half our days here: white. For just when we were settling into the balmy spring that felt like flatlands, enticing me to think I might manage growing a tomato or pepper, we are reminded. These are high, harsh mountains. And that little bit of snow might just be the reminder we need to show us where we belong. Home. Here and now. We’ll see about tomorrow.
Much more to say, my head seems swirling. I can’t wait to show Forrest the things that are just as he remembers, and have changed so much. Off to stoke the fires, stir the pot, and wake the boys.
Gin Getz 
It’s funny…. I get disappointed when your daily writing ends. I will look forward to the next issue!!
Bobby, that’s super sweet music to my ears (I do read out loud).. thank you!
I am so glad you are back “HOME “.Sometimes it takes a while to realize where home realy is .I’m still looking .Even though we live in the city everyone says ower home is just comfy .Not fancy but filled to overflowing with things we have made and the walls full of pictures . To me thats the way a home should be .Not for show but to live in .I,ve seen pictures of yours and it looks great to me .Well worth the work .I also look forward to your writes and pictures .They take me from here to a much better place .Looking forward to meeting all of you in person some day . Until Later Don
City, country, really Don, I agree, comfortable, warm and welcoming don’t have to be a log cabin. I grew up in the suburbs and then city of NY, and I’ll tell you, my parents house was always comfortable, warm and welcoming. I am learning what matters more than “where” is what you do with what you have. A beautiful place can still be hell if the owners make it so. Sounds like you and Fely have warm hearts, and that extends to our homes. It’s up to all of us, wherever we are, to learn a thing or two about hospitality. Old fashioned, simple and true.
Funny how you took off and moved the minute your son was off to college. Mine’s 15, and in a way, we’ve been waiting too. How does one learn to love and call a place home? I’ve never “loved” my townhome, always wanting to move every year for the last 10, even looking at other houses, and the market just one level off of possibility both pre and post recession. I’ve always wanted land and more animals around, instead closed off to a 15ft rectangle backyard with a wall, but sun-palms-squirrels-lizards-bees-cockroaches-hibiscus all year round. I joined the local Fairchild Tropical Gardens to have a walk in larger space, but after my visit to the Wyoming Tetons 2 years ago, even this local public garden space seems tight, all the plants squeezed in, just like all the people squeezed into homes in this urban Miami.
I’m so glad for you. You found Home. Hope the feeling stays.
Sherie
So many ideas stir up within me on your comment, Sherie.
First, our moving was no coincidence with Forrest’s heading to school. Our choice was based upon our promise to be closer to him, where ever he went, to allow him to open his horizons and choose his college based on his own wants and desires, not fears. I think this added boost of support gave him just the little bit more confidence to realize that at school, he can make his own family, and doesn’t need us close.
Second, … ok, wait… I was going to post the rest here, but after receiving a note from a friend and reader who said he’d been missing the comments… I’m going to include the rest of my response in my post tomorrow. Because it matters, if to no one else, than to me. Something for which I feel deeply… OK, so… until the morning!
Love this post Gin :-) So happy for you.
:D
Thank you, Ann!!!!
And awaiting the best for and from you…
I know I tend to pick out a single sentence in a post and write only about that and here I go again…have you ever thought about having a greenhouse in the summer so you could grow tomatoes and peppers and other veggies? I guess you would probably have to have a heater in there at night, though…
Would need a heater at night, yes, but here’s the biggest problem. Our “growing season” coinsides with the monsoons. So that means when those tomotoes and peppers are needing the most light, they get the least. Clouds move in by mid day. Problem. Grow lights? Great idea, they work well, but green and efficient? Maybe with a big buck upgrade to our simple solar system. Anything is possible with enough money, but what if we want to (and have to) keep it small and simple? So… I’m not giving up just yet… probably never, you know!
Well I guess that in two years time, when I turn fifty and make the big trip that I’ve promised myself, I’ll find you up on your mountain. I’m glad. The world wouldn’t be right if you weren’t up there in your eyrie eyes open observing and enlightening.
I’ve just seen an image of my old home. It’s been looted to a ruin. Well, that will cut off the pointless night-time dreams about returning. Someimes life needs to hand out a sharp kick to drive the lazy one ahead. For one, returning to the still point in a turning world is best. For others a bit of motion helps. Sometimes ahead is in front. But not always. Not for you. For you it’s a bit like the pantomime (do you have thosen in the US?) where the crowd shouts “he’s behind you”.
Yes, that’s it, T S Elliot put it well:
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline.
And that still point, as hard to hold as balance on the tip of pin.
Somedays it seems the movement (often only within ones mind) keeps us so far from the point where we want to be. And stillness becomes a swirl of leaves in the wind.
Finding that still point, and maintaining position… funny something seemingly so simple should be such a challenge. A lifetime to perfect…
I am sorry about your old home. A forced closure of sorts. Removing the option of going back, though you knew it never should be. Hopefully then freeing you in a way. LIghtening the load of the temptations of past, and opening the horizon for the future…