I never liked living in Atlanta. I liked the parks and the museums and all the great food. I was always grateful to live in a well wooded neighborhoods, but it killed me to see so many of the trees give way to mcmansions and shopping centers. To see the traffic grow thicker and harrier. To see smog develop in the air.
I always cherished the time my family spent in North GA and Western NC, renting cabins in state parks and camping. Whenever we left I dreamt of a day when I could stay, when I would visit the city instead. My dad read me all of the Little House on the Prairie series which fueled my imagination and dreams of homesteading. It shaped my identity as a pioneer girl in search of some type of modern frontier and my aspirations to be a renaissance woman...making my own bread, sewing my own clothes, growing my own food. I wondered if I was born in the wrong time. I reread all the Little House books in college, trying to keep my hopes alive.
After college a good friend moved to his family's acreage in KY. I visit as often as my schedule and budget will allow, which is never as often as I'd like. With every visit I vowed to myself that I would either one day live there or find my own corner of the world to be "my Kentucky".
Then I visited Lasqueti Island. A magical, wonderful, beautiful place full of homesteaders, cobbers, and more than everything my heart had dreamed of. Jugglers, fruit trees, artists, the free store, musicians, a marimba band with homemade marimbas, roadside stands full of flowers and cookies and vegtables, a costume ball with a community of all ages enjoying each other, cabins made from trees felled by hand! I wept at how happy I was there. I wept at how I didn't feel I deserved to be that happy. My KY vows became a battle cry. I had to find my place to live my life the way I had dreamed and promised myself I would.
And them my life fell apart. I was in a terrible high speed car accident. My Granny (and last living grandparent) died. A string of other deaths; of friends, relatives, a mentor...I felt certain my own death was waiting just around the corner. There was a flood. I had panic attacks for the first time in my life. I was in one of the darkest places I had ever been, overwhelmed by grief so intense I had trouble connecting to it and really feeling it. Everyday I used all my energy and determination to stay glued together.
And then my husband left me without a word or a note. He refused any and all communication. And asked for divorce via email.
And in the midst of these tragedies (and a daunting feeling that there was more to come, that it would never end) I saw a light at the end of a very long tunnel. I knew this was my opportunity to make the life my heart desired. To escape the adult life in Atlanta my teenage self had promised would never exist. I took a month off of work, with the incredible understanding, compassion and assistance of my co-workers. I traveled to KY, to friends who are family in IN and to the John C. Campbell Folk School in NC. I learned to spin my own yarn, improved my knitting skills and edited the dickens out of my children's book. I sought perspective and advise from the many amazing women I met at folk school, women older and wiser than me who were divorced, never married or happily married for decades.
I cried. A lot. I journeyed and journal-ed. I went to therapy. I moved into my own tiny apartment and felt safe for the first time in months.
I had a constant vision of myself running from a bombed out city, heavy bags cutting into each hand with their weight, blood seeping from around the handles, no idea what was inside of them. And I kept telling this self "you just have to make it to some place safe....you can't put these bags down no matter what...you have to keep going...you have to carry yourself to a safer place...you have to hold it all together until you find a safe place..."
And then I met Frandz.
And the more we talked the more we realized we want the same handmade life. Want to grow our own food, build our own house, make our own bread. So we searched and researched and drove all over North GA. Frandz finagled a loan and in a too-good-too-be-true moment bought our favorite of everything we'd seen. I quit my job. We moved into a 25 year old doublewide on 5 amazing acres. I had a feeling that someone or something was going to take it all away from me any minute, tell me it was all over. Friends and family expressed excitement, concern, anger, joy, encouragement and disappointment. But I knew I was finally honoring my truest self and breathing life to my dreams. Something I felt I had to do to survive everything I had just been through. A runaway train, cut loose from everything, good and bad that had held me back before, hurdling toward whatever is to come.
So here I am. An urban evacuee at last. Making my home. Finding time to be an artist. Looking at floor plans for earth homes. Listening to the crickets and the breeze instead of traffic and sirens. Cobbling together my favorite parts of KY and Lasqueti, my childhood fantasies and my adult visions.
And I think I can finally start unpacking those mysterious heavy bags. And letting the wounds heal.
No comments:
Post a Comment