We’ve been nearly a week in Tumalo now, and we’re still wandering around in awe. We’re in love with our house and the surrounding environment. We’ve had to leave a few times for provisions, of course, and hung out a bit in downtown Bend a bit yesterday, but our new home exerts an irresistible pull.
We love ALL THE SUNLIGHT coming through our trees and into our windows, all day long. We love our woodstove, that’s heating our house so well we keep our thermostat at 60 degrees. We love our altar of a kitchen, the big open spaces in our house, and the snug little bedrooms. We have become devotees of our deck; our woodpile makes us feel like natives, thanks especially to the blisters and splinters of splitting and stacking wood. (No, I do not have massage hands, at the moment.)
We walk every day, through our ‘back 40’ to Tumalo State Park and the Deschutes River, or up the hill to what can maybe only be called the high country – wide fields, big horses, and gigantic views of the Three Sisters and more in the distance. Thus far we’ve seen a coyote, an eagle, a hare, plenty of deer tracks, tons of small birds…
The air smells so good. Jim is a sun addict. We find ourselves walking, talking slower. We don’t feel the need to be connected to the electronic world so much – we leave our phones at home, and the internet isn’t nearly such a hook. We sit down to eat, and look at each other over the table. Our daily to-do list includes that long walk.
We feel saner, stronger, healthier, more balanced. We both can’t believe we waited so long to do this for ourselves, to live in a beautiful place, to create the life we wanted. Our friends back home in Portland sound universally stressed out. (Sorry, friends, but our door is always open…)
What do you dream of? What do you need to do? Act.
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April 11th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
It’s been two and a half months!! More posts, please. Tell us about the smell of snow, er, of Spring Rain, yeah, Spring Rain, and skies without smog…