The Exodus

Today I was packing my son's room for our move. I had a basket of laundry to take to the basement. While I was down there I glanced at the wood shelving I have in my laundry room. You can see the pencil marks defacing the white paint . Those marks represent the growth of my sons since we moved in this house. (I never measured our daughter because she was done growing when we moved here)  And each of those marks tells a story, but just part of our story. 

As we make our exodus from our current enslavement of consumerism and convenience we are still sad leaving this place we have had many memories. We need to keep on writing in that book of life, writing wonderful moments shared together as a family.  I dream about them at night as a lay in bed with my husband. He is already well off into sleep but i lay there wondering what this new home has in store for us. 

I tell my youngest son that a home is where your family is, it's not a place. I tell him this for two reasons, to comfort him and to comfort myself. 

Where there is fear there is excitement. Where there is excitement there is longing. I currently fearfully long for our new life. I am ready to burst at the seems at this point. Nine days and counting until closing. Visually, nine days seems like a never ending hallway of doors. Behind each door is a new adventure and I cannot wait to open them.  At night when I lay my head down to sleep I envision where the couch will go, where my books will displayed. I see myself in the kitchen canning, teaching, and creating.  I see my husband taking our dog for long walks in the woods and our sons catching frogs near the pond.  For today I just have to stand at the beginning of the hallway with the first door and wait patiently to open the next.

Sitting on my cement porch gazing at my backyard I noticed my view is a brick house behind me and my fence.  With only nineteen days left before closing I reflect that the brick wall will no longer be in my eyes view. A new view is on the horizon for me, and my family.  Later this evening I took a hot bath with bath salts and lavender oil, a glass of wine and some Henry David Thoreau in my hand. I am currently reading Walden and Civil Disobedience and it totally fits my life right now. His journey into the real is a resemblance of ours at this time.  He says " I went into the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not , when I came to die, discovery that I have not lived." A natural life is calling to us,working our land, keeping our home, teaching our children, and truly living.