What really happened

“Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.” ~ John Lennon

We have spent the last two months burning up the highway to a place called Vandemere. We have been inside and out of a house there. We've been thinking about buying the house and moving there permanently. The property is beautiful. The house was built by the present owner - "Two nails in the whole house," he said - and is welcoming and perfectly sited on the eleven acres. A photographer's dream, his creek a portal to the inner banks.

My mind churned non-stop with the possibilities: writing workshops, photography classes, music festivals, weekends with the house full of friends and family and fellow learners. Gardening, exploring the waterways, pets and chickens. Self-sufficiency with a little belt-tightening. Family holidays with grandkids running the property and swimming from the pier. A legacy home place for our children.

I began organizing and cleaning out my house. Not packing exactly, but thinking in terms of what we would need if we moved there. Games, books, videos. The furniture that would look good in this room or that. I put all my photographs and the children's papers and family memorabilia in containers for storage (the area is prone to flooding). I dreamed some more.

And then, and then, we decided the time wasn't right for this kind of bold move. We need to stay where we are for a while longer.

I won't say I haven't mourned the decision. But a strange thing happened in the midst of the mourning: I realized that all the things I thought of doing there I can do right where I am. Although I won't wake up and walk out the pier with my coffee, I can sit on my deck, private with lush greenery, and listen to the morning chatter of the birds. I can open my windows at night and hear the toads' chorus. I can have workshops and house concerts, rooms full of friends and family. Our garden is in and coming up beautifully.

I realize that my dreams cannot be contained by a place. I still might want to move to Vandemere some day, or some place like it, but I'm going to keep on living right where I am for now. Stay tuned...you know you'll be a part of my next adventures!