writing for self-discovery

I wanted to title this post, Settling in on Fantasy Bay, but that was a tad too optimistic. It’s not quite where I’m at.

When I moved back to the family farm of my childhood, I wondered what life here would be like as an adult. Where would I fit in? I couldn’t conjure a scenario. Nothing felt familiar.

To be fair, I didn’t have much time to dwell on it. From the moment I arrived, I focused all my energy on the shell of an abandoned hunting shack, hoping to magically turn it into a home.

I put my body through nine months of physical hell, climbing up and down ladders, crawling on my knees, scooting on my butt, pounding nails, lifting and dragging plywood, sheetrock, flooring, siding, and falling into bed at night, utterly spent.

For six of those months, I lived next door with my sister and brother-in-law, who were on site beside me, doing even more of what I was doing every single day.

We worked through fall, but as the veggies in the extensive garden matured, there were days devoted to the harvest. Our trio picked, cleaned, chopped, canned, and froze, all the carrots, beans, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, onions, kale, corn, apples, raspberries, and strawberries. Occasionally, a relative or friend would come by for coffee. At those times, work ceased for a blissful couple of hours.

Then weather turned bitter. The garden froze. It was back to the house project and more of the same until finally…

I had heat. The walls and ceilings were sheetrocked and painted. There was a composting toilet, a fifty-gallon water tank, and enough plumbing to supply water from there to the bathroom sink. I had a fridge, a microwave, a rug, and a massive sleeper sofa.

Valentine’s Day dawned with a celebratory move into my new home. There were kitchen cabinets but no countertops, little by way of furnishings, and no stove. As I occupied the space, energy shifted. Now I was on my own clock. The unfinished pieces demanded attention, but I could easily procrastinate. I began to imagine a gentler life.

I soldiered slowly on. W uninstalled the ineffective, tankless water heater and replaced it with a 2.5 gallon tank model that delivered H-O-T water!

He put in the shower.

I bought unfinished butcherblock countertops, sanded, stained, and polyurethaned the heck out of them.

W installed those and the kitchen sink. My stove was delivered.

If you will recall, I have no well. By trial and error, I perfected the method of carrying water in one-gallon milk jugs, twenty at a time, from their house, to fill my under-the-sink container, something I’ll be doing once every two weeks until the end of time.

More furniture arrived, and Gwen helped me assemble it. The counter-height table and stools went together like a dream. She’s much better at following directions than I am. But the ungainly hall tree challenged our skills and our patience to the max.

Just as I began to relax into the cushy refinement of a job well done…

And just as I began to picture a life of ease…

The Bear arrived.

No…. If you’re thinking along the lines of my monkey nightmares in Bali, this was not that. Bear is a long-time family friend affectionately nicknamed for his resemblance in stature to that animal. Years ago, he bought twenty acres of this farm with the intent of retiring here. That time had come.

In a level of excitement resembling mine when I first laid eyes on my hunting shack, he looked at the falling down barn on the property and visualized paradise.

Knowing I could never directly repay the hundreds of volunteer hours Gwen and W spent helping me (karma doesn’t necessarily operate that way) I set to work helping Bear with his dream. The universe had seen fit to bring a remodeling project as daunting in scope as mine. Once again, I was crawling on my knees, scooting on my butt, lifting and dragging rotted plywood and dank insulation to twenty-yard dumpsters, putting my aged body through physical hell, paying back.

Meanwhile, I’m getting clear about what life at Granny’s Landing on Fantasy Bay will look like. In fact, one word pretty well sums it up:

Projects.

And just to make certain there’s no shortage of energy-sucking, back-breaking tasks, I’ve started an addition to my tiny house: a garage, entryway, and deck. Home Depot delivered the first load of materials last week. (Click the link below to watch the video)

https://photos.app.goo.gl/UvMD1mbCCp6c99jt8

Gone forever is the relaxed, sedentary, writer’s life that was my existence in Bali. This chapter is about pushing physical limits, laughing in the face of the seventy-three year old in the mirror who thought she’d retired.

But it’s also about community – being a contributing part of something vital, something bigger than I am. Learning new skills. Getting filthy sweaty dirty and not caring what I look like.

I’ve peeled back a whole new layer of self-discovery revealing the rest of who I am: physically strong, capable, gritty, and unadorned…

In Bali, I discovered true happiness.

Here…

I’ve found freedom.