I moved to the woods
(in the middle of nowhere)
In an effort to heal my body.
In an effort to let things be slow and quiet.
In an effort to allow a new rhythm to find me.
In an effort to live with less effort.
It's really difficult to switch from living in larger cities to moving to a town of 250 or so people, the median age of which seems to be about 65. Every day I am tasked with the burden of how to fill my time as I no longer have fast access to pretty much anything I relied on before. I hope this morphs from a burden into a blessing in due time. There have certainly been days so far in which I can't believe my luck, and I can feel my nervous system finally settling down after years of fight-or-flight, and a crow speaks to me and I know exactly what he's saying. Blessings abound.
I really do believe that there are no right or wrong choices, merely ways we've chosen to experience the world. This brings a much-needed neutrality to everything, or rather turns it all into a blank space ripe for assigning meaning and indulging creativity.
Deciding to move from Nashville to Northern MI? Big, blank canvas.
Deciding to give up years of entrepreneur flexibility for a remote 9-5? Extra big and scary blank canvas.
Deciding to make a conscious effort to bring my body out of trauma and into homeostasis? I am kicking and screaming my way into this open space.
If there is anything in abundance here it is the blank space of quietness. My mornings are quiet, except for when I am passionately recounting my wild dreams to my roommate Jenny over the breakfast table. My walks are quiet, aside from neighbors murmuring a hello from their porches. My cooking is quiet, except when I accidentally throw a pan too fast into the sink and it clangs against the steel. It is a new kind of quiet partnered with everyday moments of small noises that I am noticing with freshness because they finally have their space to be heard. You’d think this would catapult me into presence, but it’s only been a month (barely) and I am yet finding myself one foot in, one foot out of truly settling in here.
And really, the overall message is time. It takes time. Jenny and I have already found ourselves repeating it to each other whenever a local business won’t return our calls or when the cafe is randomly closed on a Tuesday: it’s all taking its time. Why shouldn't we? Why are we moving so fast, anyway? Where are we trying to get to? Why do I need my packages in two days or less? Why do I want to be healed and perfect now? Why do I need to meet the love of my life tomorrow?
I think I came here to understand that nothing is as good as when it takes its time. That I am whole and fine and happy right here, right now, without needing something to change or come barreling toward me. If I can live in the energy of slowness, I can notice things that want to be noticed, like how my body is trying really hard to heal itself and that I’m actually doing a really good job of helping it along, despite an inner voice that tells me it’s all a waste and it’s not happening fast enough. I came here with a firm intention to release some long-held guilt and shame, and when you’ve carried something for 25+ years you don’t just release it overnight. You release it slowly and tenderly and patiently, day by day, and it takes as long as it wants to until you wake up one day and realize you feel more spacious and more in love.
I came here to celebrate choice-making, and how I’ve come to a really delightful point in my life where I have a great relationship with my inner choice-maker, and I trust her to steer me toward things that are in direct service of what I want to experience in life. I am moving away from “Is this in alignment?” and toward “Do I want to experience this?” I think really all alignment is is not a feeling of right-ness, but more so a loving devotion to a personal commitment. I didn’t know if moving up here was “in alignment,” but I sure did feel that it was conducive to the work I felt I needed to do on myself. I don’t know if taking this new 9-5 job is “in alignment,” but I absolutely know that I am committed to exploring an experience of financial stability and daily structure in ways that I haven’t bumped up against in several years.
It is all so uncomfortable and so enlivening at the same time.
And I am so proud of myself for doing these things despite my fear.
I think my eight year old self would be really enamored of me, of who I’ve become and the way I am in the world, trying my best to have and do and be all the things that excite me and taking time to talk to crows and whatnot.
[Photo by the tree that held my camera]
I encourage you to reflect on what you thought was cool and awe-inspiring as a kid. Go make a new recipe in the kitchen and blast the Ratatouille soundtrack and pretend there’s a cartoon rat under your hat. Go buy a bottle of champagne or Topo Chico and put on your favorite outfit and sit in the park with your friends. Find out if there are new dreams that want to be felt and touched by the pieces of you that get lost in stagnant rhythms. Remind yourself why being alive is an adventure in choice-making, and you deserve to choose to make yourself happy.
Til next time.
I love you. Thanks.