Our house is 2000 feet above sea level; that means, we occasionally get snow, ice, freezing rain and other kinds of weather crap. At times, though, the beauty is incredible. We wake and the fog covering of the valley is like an ocean; waves of mist dissolve upwards as the early morning grey burns off.
I like it here.
But being so isolated can be scary: I have begun to use the house alarm when Wizard is away. I'm not sure exactly what I'm scared of. It's not like someone couldn't break a window and get in. Who is up here, anyway? (Other than the pot growers, and I'm no threat to them. If asked, I might make a good customer.) Cellphone coverage is unreliable, but we happen to know that the police can make it here in 12 minutes. (That could be a very long 12 minutes, of course; it might even be 11 minutes too late.) We can also be unable to leave here. The previous weekend brought snow, ice, and freezing disgustingness that made the narrow windy road with drop offs and curves more than I think my little car could handle. I was driving home on Friday night, rounded a curve and suddenly -- yes, quite like that -- found myself driving on inches of white stuff and my neighbor stranded. There was a white line of demarcation. I made it up, but don't think I could have made it safely back down.
I'm beginning to understand why gurus took themselves off to mountains to think. The view is fabulous. The quiet resonant. The doe and 3 fawns who attack what vegetation I have attempted to plant gaze softly back at me. Am I one of them?
I'm finding that my house is serving as a respite; that I worry less about the intensity of the world when I am at home. When I am out and about, in the car, driving, moving; I feel alive to the injustices; my sense of outrage is strong. At home, surrounded by physical comfort, I feel the stresses of the day and the world (lived and only experienced through the work of others) begin to fade away. I no longer hold the anger and wiredness in my body. I begin to relax and let the supportive architecture do its work.
Some days, I fear that this comfort in my space and my body could lead to intellectual laziness. I fear that the fire that drives me will settle down to a too comfortable simmering ember or two. I blog less frequently. Some days, I recognize that the expansiveness allows me to think differently. My writing is longer and more complicated; I take on more topics that aren't more directly focused on my day, my life, my experience.
I think that this could be a meaning of home. Not so much a castle as a sanctuary. One in which I can experience all aspects of my body and mind in new and different ways. One which enables me to leave for the world in a new and refreshed way each day. That there can be such comfort in a place is continually surprising to me. And that I could ever need comfort is also a surprise. I wonder if I've reached a point where I can say that I need to withdraw to return.
I feel that withdrawal as a kind of ripple rather than an abdication (though believe me I'm good at that, too). There's a movement in gyrokinesis where we attempt to "wave" through the spine with ocean breath. What is ocean breath? "It's a crescendo just like the name connotes. Like an ocean wave, it seeps out of the back of the mouth slowly with the suspended and held opposition at the top of the Arch, then intensifies into a squeeze at the end of the curl, creating a crescendo of both volume and intensity." (more here).
Strange that you can grow with a place.
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