Where I Now Stand
For more than 16 years I lived on a little piece of land with some beautiful old trees—a few newer ones that I planted—a house, a garden, for which I built a cute picket fence, various outbuildings; and I called the place home.
There was a deep-seated safety tied to the thin piece of paper that was the deed with my name upon it. I watched many seasons come and go from the kitchen window over the sink of the century-old farmhouse. Graceful snowfall, violent thunderstorms, golden summer days and some long black nights. My kids spent much of their childhood there, playing and fighting and testing each other’s resolve to that fierce bond of sibling-hood. Two dogs, the family milk cow and our beloved horse, Smokey, are all buried on that land. But I’m not there any more.
Last December I sold the acreage and moved out of the house into which I’d poured so much blood and sweat and love. I moved off the land I’d tended and planted and nurtured for a decade and a half, and I’m not gonna lie, it hurt. It still hurts. But the great healer that time is, with each passing day, my perspective leans more and more away from loss, and takes a tentative turn toward…gratitude.
It was a wonderful home for a time, and I love all the memories made there—the good, the bad and the ugly—they’re all part of my experience; part of me now.
Everything changes though; nothing lasts forever—repeated reminders of this fact seem the only constant in my life.
I moved to northern New Mexico—an area to which I’ve long held an inexplicable attraction—and the place where I’m staying is stunningly beautiful. Abiquiu—Georgia O’Keefe country; the Chama River just a few steps from my back door. The property is not mine, but it’s a wonderful place to be for as long as I’m here.
After living so long with the security of knowing the home where I laid my head each night was legally mine, I went through an unnerving period of mild anxiety (particularly at this stage of life) to find myself renting. To look out at the trees in the yard and realize they are not my own. I had been trying to console myself with the notion that this, too, is a temporary arrangement, when I stumbled across the Rumi quote depicted in the accompanying graphic to this post.
“Wherever you stand, be the soul of that place.”
The timely message struck a deep chord.
The world is a big place; life encompasses so much more than any one locale; what is it that we actually own here anyway?
As I find my way forward, I’m comforted by the notion that this is not some new beginning I’ve embarked upon, burdened with all the incumbent implications of a requisite radical transformation, but merely a continuance of my life. Me—moving ahead, a going on, reaching for what is next as the page, once again, is turned. But I’m relieved to find this forward movement balanced by a sharp awareness of where I now stand— Abiquiu—and the blank page this presents to me, until, as Rumi instructs, my soul becomes a part of this place, and it, in turn, becomes a new part of me.
