Soldiering On!

• By: MountainFarmgirl
• On: 10/17/2010 18:33:11
• In: Mountain Bounty, Mountain Blessings
• Comments: 32

How we handle disappointments tells a lot about a person, doesn’t it? While it’s only natural and healthy to try to avoid them at all costs, disappointments are a part of life, and actually (if we’re lucky), we’ll have plenty of time to rack up a bunch of them before our days are over! The trick is to learn how to deal with our disappointments in healthy and positive ways, because eluding them altogether is nigh on impossible. Nevertheless, I’m still reeling from a whopper of a blow this week and while I dealt with it rather gracefully and matter-of-factly at the time (or so I thought), it is dawning on me that I have a bit of emotional work left to do before I can let this one go!

Obviously, there’s some background necessary to set the stage to my story … It involves my love of nature, the mountains and living the simple life … threads that have been tightly woven in the fabric of my life since I was a little girl. They grew stronger when I met my husband in high school, and in the last 40 years together they have solidified into a very interesting lifestyle. (You can read about some of our adventures together on my website, http://www.ilovethelodge.com/innkeepers/index.php , so I won’t bore you here with a repetition). Anyway, our years as mountain innkeepers have complicated the ‘simplicity factor’ a bit, but our little log cabin getaway up on the mountain has kept the embers of the ‘simple’ lifestyle alive … (and the coals they are a-glowing!). The Tiny House, which arrived at our Lodge in July, has fanned these flames considerably, and it's presence has inspired me to write about my current one-year simple living experiment called the “Year of Living Frugally”.

A few weeks ago, at the suggestion of my best friend who recommended it highly, we started watching Ken Burns’ National Parks DVD series. What a magnificent country we live in! It re-introduced me to my old ‘friend’ John Muir, but in a totally new way: NOT as the rough and scruffy, white

bearded old man I’ve been reading about for years, but as a 24-year old Scottish outdoor adventurer and poet, who changed the way we think and feel about nature! This got me reading a lot lately, too … getting back in touch with the good works and the nature writings of my ‘old friends’ John Muir, John Burroughs, Henry David Thoreau, Ernest Thompson Seton, Louise Dickinson Rich and the like. Reading them has given me the desire to get back to the wilds myself, and I’ve been craving the outdoors like never before.   

And so my recent emotional  'adventure' all began with one tiny notice in the newspaper. It was the announcement of an upcoming land-foreclosure auction and it sent me into the woods, map in hand, in search of this 2-acre parcel of land, It  turned out to be located not more than a mile from my very own log cabin. Walking its metes and bounds, I discovered it to be the most stunningly beautiful piece of property I have ever seen in my life ... or could ever hope to find if I live to be 100. I approached the property via a long, private country lane, a remote and romantic prelude to what I would soon discover at its wooded conclusion. This exquisite property, suddenly now ‘my property’ (at least in my heart), was completely surrounded by National Forest on three sides, and was bordered by a beautiful Cross-Country ski trail on the other. The scene to the west revealed a spectacular view of my beloved White Mountains. A magnificent brook (almost a small river after the recent rains) flowed through the mixed virgin forest, where on one corner was what can be only described as a ‘hemlock cathedral’ … a hushed and holy place of stately trees, a ‘church’ of nature untouched by human hands and commanding as much Reverence. I was awed by this land, knowing full-well I would trade in a heartbeat everything I owned -- for this little piece of heaven!

I was suddenly reminded of the classic cult film “The Gods Must Be Crazy”, in which a Coke bottle, carelessly tossed by a bush pilot from the cockpit of his plane, is discovered by a tribe of peaceful pygmies in the Kalahari. This “thing” (the bottle) which no one had ever seen before, instantly became an object of such great importance, that suddenly no one could do without it. Similarly, in the blink of an eye, this piece of property in such close proximity to my own treasured one, suddenly became the apple of my eye and my one true heart’s desire. My log cabin homestead on the mountain, which meant everything to me up until this very moment, suddenly paled in comparison, or so I suddenly thought. Was I so fickle a person that I could be swayed so drastically and completely on such a whim? Apparently so … ouch! How little we sometime know ourselves; what slaves we can be to our desires. The fact was, I wanted this property SO badly I could taste it. More importantly, however, I had very little  money set aside to invest in it, no matter how beautiful it might be. It was an emotionally charged, passionate dilemma which woke me up that night practically hyperventilating from the stress of wanting ‘the impossible’.

I spent a day sifting through maps at our town clerk’s office, and then studying records at the County Courthouse, locating  deeds, mortgages and any possible liens; in short, doing my own little title search. It was discouraging to discover the large mortgage that the bank would most likely need to recover for it at the upcoming auction. But I’m here to tell you never to give up hope in any situation, no matter what you may seem to be up against on the surface.  If something is meant to be, it will happen for you despite quite impossible odds … doors will open as if by magic. On the other hand, if it isn’t in the cards, no matter how much you hope, pray, pull strings or ‘work’ the situation, it is not going to happen no matter what. My strategy has always been to work at something like there’s no tomorrow, and then turn it all over to God, who infinitely knows better than I what is ultimately the best thing for me. And that’s what I did.

Well, auction day dawned last week dark and gloomy, as a cold rain showered on ‘my’ would-be property, and most likely also on my dream there as well. Dana and I made our way to the site with baited breath, not knowing whether 100 folks might be there to bid or whether we would be the only ones. As it turned out, there was only the bank’s attorney, a couple who came to watch, and us. This was GREAT; I really had a chance! And then practically seconds before the auction began, my heart sank as a man stepped out of a parked car. It was someone I recognized, a successful local realtor, and this was not a good omen. The bidding began, and we went slightly higher than I could safely go, but the truth is that I would have paid just about ANYTHING if I could legally have done so, as this was a place that transcended price.  Suddenly, nothing else  mattered … I just wanted to spend the rest of my life in this wild and holy spot, writing and studying nature. Everything about it felt just right.

When I said before that you should never give up hope, no matter what, did you think that my story would have a happy ending, and that I walked home last Thursday with the deed to “my” new land? Well, this is certainly great advice, and I stick to it heartily, but real life doesn’t always hand us what we think we want! The advice is just as valid (maybe more so) when the story doesn’t end as we had hoped. The truth is that the real estate agent wanted that property as much as I did (but for a totally different reason, to make a profit) and he had plenty of funds to back him up, where I did not. Fortunately, we stayed rational, and never went beyond the ultimate limit we had given ourselves, and in the end, the agent got the land … my land! It was all over within minutes without any fanfare, “Sold! To “Gentleman Number 2”. The gavel sounded so final, and it was over and done with, and my new hopes and dreams along with it. I was crushed in one sense, but intellectually knew that there had been little chance from the get-go.  Still, it was a once-in-a-lifetime find … if I had never gone to the auction, I would have ALWAYS regretted it, with that nagging sense of ‘What if ….” 

And so, life goes on … a good life at that. No, a wonderful life! A little voice in my head whispered, “Get over it Farmgirl … carry on … there is work to be done!"    We Farmgirls are no strangers to disappointments, are we? Life may be grand most of the time, but things don’t always go the way we want. Our gardens sometimes fail from too much or too little rainfall; our children sometimes get really sick; the job we were counting on doesn’t come through … there are as many disappointments in the world as there are people. I went home that day, crushed of course, but actually coping pretty well. I was reminded of a mug I saw in a local shop that my sister and I saw during her last visit. The quote on it read:

“Peace: it does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, hard work or disappointment.  It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.”

It calms me each time I read it, and I try to incorporate its message into my being, though I admit I am a work in progress!  I also like to look at this treasured painting my father gave to me about 40 years ago. We both shared a loved of the outdoors, and looking at this special glade and imagining myself sitting there, all happy and content,  gives me peace of mind.