Readying for Traveling East

A peek at the calendar tells me how few days are remaining before heading to our cabin in the lower Catskills. I'm nervous. How to finish my jewelry order, make new pieces to replace what has been purchased, decide how much/how little to pack--these questions plague me when I'm unable to sleep nights.

Today we talked with J about how much Madison has grown within its little city limits. She's horrified that her small town has burgeoned into a bedroom community chock full of new restaurants and strip malls. Why we don't object is due to the excellent planning by our mayor and her architectural guidelines. Those strip malls are well-placed, there're no streets with auto sales or fast food services approaching the city; Wal Mart spent four years adjusting building plans to meet the guidelines. I appreciate my little city despite its tremendous growth.

However, life in the quiet mountains is a dessert we seek in the summers. This is a time of reflection, of getting centered and quiet inside. A time to discover what we don't have time to observe during a busy life: the shape of limbs, the color of leaves in the fall, the distant call of turkeys, the sudden appearance of a family of deer grazing in the bit of grass we've planted, the sound of rain on our metal roof or the crunch of hooves at night on our patio or the breeze whistling through the trees.

Life there, too, is a training ground for living simply. If suddenly chaos should hit, at it did on the Gulf Coast, we know how to pick up the pieces and live on emergency status without sweat. In the deep woods our bodies automatically kick the Sandman into action when daylight fades, curl our eyelids open when the early morning light peeks over the mountains. We know the secret of living with only the basics. Time is fast approaching....I've got a lot to do...did I just say that?