Monday, August 3, 2009

A new kitchen sends me to the wilderness

Eight weeks have been spent designing, gutting, building.  Tomorrow we leave it all behind for rocks, dirt, water, sky, and trees.  The BWCA!  Perhaps this is the modern age way of finding balance.  Would I need to cook over a fire if I didn't just install a stove that one needs a computer tech degree to operate?  Will I appreciate the new stainless steel behemoths all the more upon my return after cooking in the dirt, washing in the lake, eating on the rock?  Is this what drives me to want to be without toilet, sink, fridge, counter? Is it only the desire to appreciate what I have?

Maybe what drives me more is the desire to be centered.  I believe I will know more about myself from having to rely on myself.  I will look across the still waters to find a loon caring for her babe and be brought back to something at the core of me.  I will stare up at the northern lights dancing and cavorting in the cloudless sky and allow myself to imagine.  I will watch my children create games with sticks, dirt, and bark and will find a place of peace inside.

Then I will return to the comfort and the race of this life I have designed and built but with a renewed sense of who I am, with a reminder of the joy of imagining, and the security of peace.

Off to find that mosquito repellent.