Last January I said my goal was to reduce our “stuff” by half. I think we are there or even beyond that goal. I look around my house and see just those things that I want to keep-not much in the whole scheme of things. All the rest has been passed forward, recycled, or somehow removed. I’ve got a nice sharangi (how do you spell the name of a strange, eastern instrument?) if anyone is interested . . .
It is a little bit strange to think that in just over a week we will have finished packing and we will be heading down the road. My last semester at Oglala Lakota College will be done. The house will be beautifully ready for the next occupants (our son and his wife-thank God.)
Our friends who rent our little house tilled the garden today. For the past 26 years I have planted and tended that garden, reaping its generous harvest every fall. And each year I have expanded it by inches-irresistible to the resolute gardener-to tell the guy with the tiller to go just another six inches, please. I think it was that turned earth that brought me to the sharpest realization that we are really leaving. For weeks my colleagues and friends have asked about our plans and my answers have become rote. But that bit of earth-turned by others-that brought my head up.
What is it that would make two rational (middle-aged) human beings make such a dramatic change in the worst recession since the depression? I quit a wonderful job, rented out my beautiful house, and we are off to live in a $250 camper until we get our straw bale house constructed. And beyond October, we have no clear or definite plans. It is so odd-but I know it is all exactly right and that somehow we will make all the right moves. How is that for faith? I haven’t been this excited since I met Milt and knew my life was never going to be the same. Today I was slapping mud on the sheetrock, necessary since two new windows went in, and listening to Paul Simon sing “Graceland”. I was dancing around the sunroom feeling like I was 20 and not 55.
We give too much to fear. Far, far too much. All around us we are inundated with messages that we should fear the food we eat, the air we breathe, the earth we walk on, and the uncertain dollars we put in the bank. I have had it with fear. One day I will drop out of this life and go on to whatever is next-and I don’t want to do that knowing that I did not make the most out of each and every moment. I want to have fun. I want my time back. I want to write a new book, grow a garden on some unturned piece of earth, and build the little house we have dreamed about for years. And smile. I want to laugh and smile a lot.
A question for you: what would you be doing if you weren’t afraid? What would you be doing if you didn’t talk yourself out of it time and time again? What would you be doing if you took some of the dollars (or time) you spent trying to conquer fear and just did what you wanted to do? The other day I picked up another free book at the OLC library and it was on Mother Theresa’s life. Did you know that she had a “darkness” that followed her every step of her life? She felt like God did not love her or had abandoned her. At some point in her life she realized that this darkness was part of her lightness and that one was necessary for the other to exist. I think this is true for all of us. We need our fear and doubt-they fuel the dreams and desires, the higher reach. Am I afraid? Yes. Is that fear stopping me? Not this time.
Several years ago I wrote a novel about a woman who deconstructs her life and takes a new path. I feel a little bit like my character now. Oddly, in that novel, she ends up with a great man in a house he has built entirely from recycled stuff. I should write more novels.
Happy Mother’s Day. And Mom-I miss you!
Jamie