When a person’s lifelong passion begins to fade, not because
the desire is no longer there, but because the individual no longer seems able
to execute, what should that person do?
Should they give into the jumbled thoughts and no longer seek to sort
them out, letting them go with a longing for what might have been? Or is the journey back worth the effort to
sweep away the mental cobwebs, sort through the distractions, and painstakingly
take the faltering steps in the direction in which one once took such great
strides? What about when one’s demon
leaves the occasional, reoccurring nightmare and sinks it’s sharp and ugly
teeth into the very core of one’s reality in an attempt to destroy the
tranquility of what has always brought direction and clarity? What then, when fear rears its ugly head and one
has walked backwards in retreat only to find the fire that burns inside reduced
to buried coals longing for life giving oxygen to reignite the embers?
The “what then” is now, and the choice is mine.
All my life I have been able to sit down, first with pencil
and paper, later with an electric typewriter, and eventually with a computer. The
words would come so quickly that my fingers could hardly keep up with my
thoughts. I knew where I was going with the
words. I know how to use the words to
evoke the desired feeling from the reader.
With great precision I executed
my passion.
Words to me are precious, personal, and intimate. They evoke life and death, give structure to
thoughts and feelings, record history and bring hope for the future, open doors
for intimacy and hold the power to quickly destroy another’s life. The power of words is so encompassing that I
am not sure any of us are able to fully understand their depth. The ability to communicate through written
word has always been precious to me but the last couple of years, the gift that
I was given to write my heart, has no longer come freely. Strained, difficult, laborious, exhausting has
been my efforts. I write a few lines,
walk away from my computer, and don’t return for days, weeks and sometimes
months. Rarely do I share what I have
written and when I read my words, they feel shallow and weak.
But here I am fighting back against the ugliness that
threatened to take from me what is so important. Here I am reclaiming my gift, no matter how
difficult, altered, or flailing it may be.
Let the words come even though they may lack definition. Let the sentences form although they may be
weak. Let the paragraphs bring structure
to my thoughts although they may not be as clear as in the past. Let the stories flow if for only me to
read. One day, the words may be taken completely
from me, but that day is not today.
I keep reaching for
the words.
After three years, I have resumed my online journaling.
October 23, 2021
Mike returned home from Staunton today. It has been 4 ½ years since we signed on our
property in Laurel Fork. When we first
moved here, we talked about a five-year cap.
We never held each other to that timeline and I, especially, remained silent. It was important to me to allow Mike to find
his own timeline for letting go of the property in Augusta County. After all, that place was his dream and the
home where he raised his children to adulthood.
He has had so much more emotion and sentiment attached to the place than
I ever could. I loved the place as well
but not as deeply as he. I always had a
few reasons for not feeling like I completely belonged there. Yet, I was happy
there and in awe of all that had become mine over the years of our life
together. Mike had worked hard to take
open farmland and make a tiny portion of it into a mini farm for my Jersey
cows. The views from The Octagon House
were fabulous and I soaked in the gloriousness of it every single day, never
taking for granted all my blessings. I honestly never dreamed we would leave
that place and I was ok with that. However,
in time, we did leave, and we tried for a while to make things work at both
places until things just became more and more difficult. Our family who lived in the Staunton house
after we left split up and moved away. Without family there, we had to decide
what to do with the place and not wanting to rent it to strangers, Mike decided
to put it on the market. Six months later we have had little interest in the
place and we still own it. So, we
continue to do what we have been doing.
Mike travels back and forth and keeps both farms from falling
apart. He makes hay in Staunton, mows
the grass, and keeps the weeds back.
Then he comes to Laurel Fork where he provides the upkeep necessary to
keep this farm from falling back into the neglect in which we found it when we
first moved here, a condition which we have worked so hard to eradicate. Mike trucks the hay he has made in Staunton,
puts it in our barn in Laurel Fork, mows the grass here like he does in Augusta
County, and keeps back the weeds with the endless weed eating. During gardening season, he plants, tends,
and harvests his beloved gardens but not with the excess we had at the other
farm. He grows only for the two of us
with sometimes a little left over that we give away or offer on our self-serve
produce cart kept viable through an honor system. I milk my cows, walk my Great Pyrenees, tend
to my senior dogs (one of which is completely lame), make cheese, preserve the
garden harvest, and occasionally knock down the cobwebs that accumulate so
quickly in our cottage home. Sometimes I
even dust the furniture and I frequently sweep and mop the floors. The laundry
is a constant.
Now I live deep in the mountain range of which I once use to
gaze when I lived in Staunton. I breathe
deeply the air at higher elevations, love the quietness of my life, and wonder
if when Mike finally can let go of the farm in Staunton, if he will be content. Some days, when he can rest and relax and
enjoy what we have here in Carroll County, I think he longs to be free of so
much responsibility. Other days, when he
is beginning to go a little stir crazy and wanting a change of scenery, I
wonder if he will ever truly be able to soak in the stillness of this place and
find the contentment here that I do. Today,
Mike is back and happy to be home. He
reflects that when he returns after being gone a few days, he sees anew the
joys and benefits of our little house in the mountains. Those moments of contentment shared by the
two of us are moments I treasure. I sigh
and remark that I am always content here, and I am.
While Mike worked in the autumn hay fields this past week, I
caught up on quiet time while simultaneously checking off several things on my
to do list. Finally getting a break from
the canning and setting aside making cheese, I tackled some of the things I have
put aside for a while. Mike had been
gone three days when I realized that I had never turned on the television,
listened to the radio, or even picked a new audio book to read. I had just been sinking gently into the
silence and unwinding. Last weekend we
had family visit and while I treasure those times together, plan for them six
months in advance, and don’t take them for granted, they wipe me out. As I age, my need for less distractions, more
quiet time, and little diversion from my routines intensifies. The brief times I engage with others leaves
me feeling thankful for friends and family with whom to connect but ready to
crawl back into my own little universe, process what has transpired, and find
my solace in solitude.
October 24, 2021
Sunday morning and our church is still on a twice a month
meeting schedule. Covid shut the church
down, like most other churches for part of last year and then when we resumed,
we did so with limited services. Our
church relied on visiting pastors from various locations, many of them
traveling long distances to lead a service. With our small congregation being
mostly seniors, it really didn’t seem wise to have pastors traveling in from
other locations even if they would be willing and felt comfortable doing so. Most recently, for me, I take those Sundays
when we don’t have services and spend them with my neighbor who has stage four
pancreatic cancer. I’ve shared the story
of our friendship in other places, but I don’t believe I have recorded it in my
journals. It’s such an important part of
my life that I want to record it here, hopefully for my grandchildren to read
some day.
Initially when we bought this property and I began hiking to
what I refer to as the Back Forty every day, I would reach the summit point of
our land where the views are most spectacular, one can see little evidence of
the human footprint, and I have a clear view of Buffalo Mountain, a local and beautiful
landmark. As I began my decline from
this pinnacle of gorgeous views, in my decline my eyes would sweep our
properties boundary line to the right where my eyes would land on someone’s
home, not far from our fence line. Selfishly, my heart would tighten as I pulled
my eyes away from the house and wished to myself that we lived even further
away from any neighbors. Not too long
after we began making Laurel Fork our primary residence, those fencline
neighbors stopped by our house. The lady
didn’t get out of the car, but the man introduced himself and invited us to an
ice cream social at the local church he pastored. He said his wife, who was in the car, was in
poor health, and apologized that she couldn’t get out and meet me. Inwardly, I cringed. Not only were these the neighbors that I
selfishly wished didn’t have a home on the edge of the property we had purchased,
but the man was a Baptist preacher, and he was inviting me to his church. I’ve had a lot of experience with Baptist and
while some of those experiences have been good, a number have not been so
pleasant. It didn’t’ help that I had just
recently been through a very hurtful incident with a Baptist preacher who along
with someone I thought was a friend to our family had taken a very vulnerable,
elderly family member down a dangerous path when this person’s mental health and
wellbeing were fragile and compromised. My
spirit was not open to another “man of god” using their authority and self-righteousness
to try to manipulate us. I politely
turned the neighbor away telling him that we had a church and were busy the day
their church was having the get together.
My solitary walks ended when we took in Buddy, the rescue
dog. A great Pyrenees with a host of problems
brought on by abuse and neglect when he was younger, two-year-old Buddy ran
away frequently in his early days with us and various neighbors would bring him
home. Then, he found his favorite
neighbors and seemed to become very attached to the lady who lived across our
fence. Instead of being unkind in their response to
being invaded by a hundred-pound Houdini, the neighbor lady, although not in
good health, would secure the dog so that he could not escape and come to get
me to bring him home, being unable to wrestle him into her car herself. Through love for this renegade dog, our
relationship began. Still, I remained
reserved, not seeking out any intimacy with the neighbors, simply being kind
when our paths might cross and no longer looking so despairingly at their home
when I would head down the hill on my daily walks. One day the preacher stopped by to say that his
wife had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
He brought some egg cartons for me and just casually mentioned her
illness in passing. I was genuinely sad
to hear the news but I was not an intimate friend and had not intentions of
investing the time it takes to become one.
The following week, I sent them a message and told them I would like to
bring dinner for them. I thought of it
as a nice gesture towards neighbors who had kindly, without complaint, returned
my dog on multiple occasions and who were facing a difficult journey with the
cancer diagnosis. I told myself that I
would do a few things for them here and there but there was no way that I was
going to be close friends. The instinct
to guard my heart from future hurt was strong.
Funny how the universe has greater plans and how my forced
acts of kindness soon became genuine.
Maybe, at another time in both of our lives, my neighbor and I might not
have connected so deeply and so quickly.
My neighbor’s stark reality of the brevity of her life and my own
understanding of that same concept from the view of one who has more than once unexpectantly
lost a dear loved one and lives with grief that lasts a lifetime opened our
hearts to one another in a manner that otherwise might have taken years to
establish.
That is how, two
years later, I find myself most every other Sunday, sitting on my neighbor’s
sofa spending precious moments with her as we chat, as she naps, and while
helping her with basic needs, until her faithful, caregiving husband returns
from delivery his Sunday sermon at the little, white, historic church down the
road. When our Sunday visits are over, I get on my ATV, make my way back down
to the holler to my own home after we have embraced, and I leave her with a
gentle kiss on the cheek.
Most every day, for two years, we have checked on each other
morning and night and our hearts are intertwined in a way that typically takes
a lifetime even though we have only had three years. These
are not the invasive neighbors whose house ruins my view, or the dominating
preacher and wife who beat me over the head with their religious beliefs. These are my people are my friends and I am
blessed that sometimes what is meant to be triumphs over my stubborn resistance
and that love always finds a way.