If I am a Macy's Day balloon, James is the hundreds of rope-carrying volunteers preventing it from spinning off and impaling itself on the Empire State Building. I am grateful for him in a way that I have never known, which becomes increasingly apparent the longer we are here. I don't think I have ever struggled to find stability like I am now. Turns out, there's a price to pay for living in such a beautiful (remote) place - everyone with vision is working for themselves, and a community built on the shoulders of owner operators does not have much to offer someone who has always been an operator. And I have no idea how to darn a sock. So that leaves me in a very scary place, one that I am trying daily to rectify, but I've been working so much I come home deflated and discouraged. James has been keeping me afloat, but I do not feel good about putting so much pressure on him, and feel like it's time to turn the tides.
Which is what brought me back here - an outlet to catalog this tumultuous time. I think the only thing to do is the thing that I've ALWAYS thought I would do - to become one of those visionary owner operators. It's just a matter of crawling out from under five months (years?) of dust and remembering that I have the power to do it, and to do it well. I said to James the other day that I think one of the things that has been stopping me is that I always imagined it would be in Delaware, and the thought of opening something here makes me feel like that will never happen. But I have to remember, daily, that this moment is not forever, and things change. And that I have to start trying to make my life, OUR life. Which also, is why we moved here to begin with. So this is the start of trying. The start of business plans, of more red tape than I can imagine, and of backbreaking work. But ultimately I will have something that can support us both, that we can do together, and that will be our next step. Of many.
Sunday, November 1, 2015
Friday, October 30, 2015
A million miles, and many years
As uncomfortable as I am with the thought of keeping a blog, I am even more uncomfortable confronting the basic truth of having letting it go by the wayside while life happened. But, here I am, a million miles, several years, and very far from home.
Technically it's only about 237 miles, but that is farther than I've been from my family for longer than a month. And it's been five. I feel like I have lost all of my limbs, and my heart, and everything I have, all at once. Like undressing before a shower in the winter. I always knew how lucky I am to have such a bond with them, and it's more clear to me now than ever that I stayed because I was afraid of this separation, this vulnerability. I keep trying to convince myself that it's a good thing, a natural thing, a necessary thing, but it hasn't caught up to me just yet.
People we meet keep asking what brought us here, how we got here. All I can muster most of the time is...we aren't sure ourselves. We followed a feeling. We needed to unstick. We rented a truck, packed our tiny studio, and wound up in Woodstock, New York. The cat, the dog, the boy, and a lot of books. What ultimately brought us here was our never ending search for Home. That feeling that this is your place, these are your people. I have always felt that about Delaware but I felt that if I spent eight years in Philadelphia then I couldn't turn tail and go home. Not right away. I felt (still feel), as though I had never really Tried. Never seen the world, taken risks, been brave. Brief respites into the beyond but never worked up the courage to move away from home. To find...a new home? That was the question, and here we are living the answer.
The Hudson Valley is a wild amalgamation of extremes - abject poverty, breathtaking beauty, simplicity, and heart. The people who live here seem to cobble together lives based purely on whatever they can make of themselves. They darn socks, they paint pictures, they paint houses, become garbage men, farm, cook, and create their realities so that THIS is their reality. The mountains and the rivers infuse every aspect of life here in a way that I have never known nature to be so present. In Philadelphia we lived alongside one another, the city and I. It was a waking reminder that I had very little control, and so I created a space filled with warmth, food, and as much love as I could. Here, I feel very much as though we are guests in these hills. That at any moment the rain or the snow or the bears could bring a not so gentle reminder that they were here first. And it's true. And it should be true. But it has taught me humility, and only a handful of snowflakes have fallen. I wonder what winter will bring?
Technically it's only about 237 miles, but that is farther than I've been from my family for longer than a month. And it's been five. I feel like I have lost all of my limbs, and my heart, and everything I have, all at once. Like undressing before a shower in the winter. I always knew how lucky I am to have such a bond with them, and it's more clear to me now than ever that I stayed because I was afraid of this separation, this vulnerability. I keep trying to convince myself that it's a good thing, a natural thing, a necessary thing, but it hasn't caught up to me just yet.
People we meet keep asking what brought us here, how we got here. All I can muster most of the time is...we aren't sure ourselves. We followed a feeling. We needed to unstick. We rented a truck, packed our tiny studio, and wound up in Woodstock, New York. The cat, the dog, the boy, and a lot of books. What ultimately brought us here was our never ending search for Home. That feeling that this is your place, these are your people. I have always felt that about Delaware but I felt that if I spent eight years in Philadelphia then I couldn't turn tail and go home. Not right away. I felt (still feel), as though I had never really Tried. Never seen the world, taken risks, been brave. Brief respites into the beyond but never worked up the courage to move away from home. To find...a new home? That was the question, and here we are living the answer.
The Hudson Valley is a wild amalgamation of extremes - abject poverty, breathtaking beauty, simplicity, and heart. The people who live here seem to cobble together lives based purely on whatever they can make of themselves. They darn socks, they paint pictures, they paint houses, become garbage men, farm, cook, and create their realities so that THIS is their reality. The mountains and the rivers infuse every aspect of life here in a way that I have never known nature to be so present. In Philadelphia we lived alongside one another, the city and I. It was a waking reminder that I had very little control, and so I created a space filled with warmth, food, and as much love as I could. Here, I feel very much as though we are guests in these hills. That at any moment the rain or the snow or the bears could bring a not so gentle reminder that they were here first. And it's true. And it should be true. But it has taught me humility, and only a handful of snowflakes have fallen. I wonder what winter will bring?
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