Home at Last ( Part One)

After 35 years, I have finally come home.  Much like the place of my childhood, I am surrounded by more of God’s handiwork than man’s, but even more so.  We live in the forest of western North Carolina.  We have no grass to mow, except what tries to reclaim our graveled driveway.  Our “yard” is literally trees and undergrowth.  Our lawn equipment now consists of a push mower, a weed whacker, a chain saw and hatchets.  My childhood effort, to listen closely for the rare moments void of any man-made sounds, has become effortless.  Birdsong, crickets, the rushing of the stream below our property, and the occasional whir of hummingbird wings compose the music that continually meets my ears.  Home sweet home is easy on the senses.

We can’t see our neighbors’ houses until the leaves drop in late autumn.  If a dozen cars wind their way past our house in a day, we call it heavy traffic.  On Saturday mornings backup generators automatically fire up all over the mountain to keep the batteries charged.  With few exceptions, that’s about as much interaction as there is.  If not for Sunday services, we would seldom see most of these folks.  In that respect, it turns out to be like most every other place I’ve lived. 

Now What?

We wonder what we’re doing here, now that we’re here.  Our youngest son recently suggested that his dad and I are here to heal and to rest.  I agree.  But after six months of healing and resting, we can’t help but wonder what’s next for us.  In fact, we’ve lately begun to doubt whether we should have come here at all.  We’re financially strapped, socially isolated, and the only thing we have any sureness about is that I’m here to write. We have no idea where finances will come from to meet our obligations. If something doesn’t break loose before tax time next year, it looks like we’ll be in trouble.

We came down here pretty much on a whisper of insight.  Our original excitement about this house, this place, this neighborhood and this timing had waned to the point of practicality and spreadsheets. It simply didn’t make sense for us move here at this time, to buy this much house for this much money.   It would have made more sense for Dave to stay at his job, pay for yet one more mortgage, and wait to retire and move after our Ohio real estate was sold. And it certainly would have made more sense to have a job or a business or something in place before we moved.  Yet we decided to make this move in the midst of the U.S. banking fiasco and the worldwide economic meltdown of 2008.

Things had been happening in our lives, especially mine, over the past few years. Things had been building, one upon the other, and forming an image that ended up looking like we needed to make this move in spite of logic, reason or anything that looked remotely like sanity.  It’s only somewhat comforting to learn that most everybody else on this mountain has come here under similar circumstances. So, either we all have tremendous faith, or we’re all ridiculously insane.  If I hadn’t had the dream two years ago, I would lean toward an insanity plea.

Please come back to read Part Two.  I'll let you in on "the dream."