Prompt #1

"For each home ground we need new maps, living maps, stories and poems, photographs and paintings, essays and songs.  We need to know where we are, so that we may dwell in our place with a full heart."  Scott Russell  Sanders

Looking out the window today, at snow falling and loading the pine boughs with thick white clumps, I am reminded what a far country I have traveled from to find my true Home.  I spent the first 24 years of my life in Southern California in the company of salt-heavy air, fog, countless summer days at the beach, sidewalks, and kite-flying, roller skating... I grew up in a house that was sandwiched between two others, my bedroom window looked over a small patch of earth, and into the bedroom window of my neighbor.

My husband and I found this place on the eastern slopes of the North Cascades 28 years ago.  We skied onto this land on a sunny, cold February day.  We noted the cluster of pines and aspen on the western side of the property, the flat piece of land that looked South over the Chewuch River valley. We listened.  Quiet.  Absolute quiet.  Not another house in our sight.  Something rose from this place, offering us hope.  Hope for a life together far from a city's chaos and traffic.  The mountains in the North beckoned to my husband.  We would need to have a road built into the property, and we would live at the end of it.  Behind us, 1200 acres of open land, pine and fir trees, seasonal streams, and herds of mule deer.

We jumped.  I still call it a "leap of faith."  It was exactly right.  This land has held us in its generous hands, has challenged us in ways we never expected.  We had decided to work to build a life and home in a place that was quiet, near to mountains, a place that had four seasons, in a small community, a good place to raise our family.  And so we bought the land (30 acres), built our home (ourselves), established a business, raised our children; became part of a diverse, friendly, supportive community.

We camped on our property, beneath the biggest ponderosa pine tree, for a month, the first summer we owned the land.  We set up a tent, a hammock, a small outdoor kitchen and shower.  After living with my in-laws in Marin County, in a cramped "in-law unit," we were in Paradise!  During the hot days, we explored the two rivers, and sought out swimming holes.  We scouted for trails good for day hikes.  We sat hours in our camp chairs and watched the land.  We noted where the sun rose and set, and when.  We listened as best we could to what the land said to us.

I'm born of  Mexican and Scot/Irish people.  There are many storytellers in my family.  I believe that finding this land was a gift.  A Native American writer came to our valley and read some stories from a collection she was working on.  She spoke about her connection to place, and she told the audience that the land has stories to tell, if only we listen.  Her words settled in my heart, and I began to jot down notes during my walks, or when something would catch my attention.  I began to listen, not only with my ears, but with my eyes, with my heart.  I began to learn the names of some of the plants, birds, and animals I was keeping company.  I began to pay close attention to prints on the road, scat on the trail, wind, circling raptors, signs of changing weather, claw marks on an aspen's bark, to gauge how close a gunshot is, or lightning. 

Because we live in a fairly remote area, there aren't as many services available to us.  We have learned to do things for ourselves.  Sometimes by ourselves.  When my husband is gone, and the other neighbor is too, I plow our driveway (1 1/2 miles) so that I can go to town.  Times have changed the town some, but there aren't any 24 hour markets, or curbside recycling, etc.  Living here, has taught me to look ahead, to plan.  To do without.  To make do with what we have.  We aren't living on a homestead in Alaska, that's for sure.  We have TV, internet, cell phones.  But, the nearest hospital is an hour away, and I have several friends who had their baby at home or in the car because they were unable to make the trip in time.

"Our national literatures should be important to us insofar as they sustain us with illumination and heal us.  They can always do that so long as they are written with respect for both the source and the reader, and with an understanding of why the human heart and the land have been brought together so regularly in human history."  Barry Lopez
 

Over the 25 years we have lived here, we have endured weeks of thick smoke from  wildfires, one that burned from our valley all the way to Canada.  We have known climbers who have fallen, skiers and snowmobilers caught in avalanches, ranchers who have been trampled, cancer.  The people in our valley hold each other up.  Because we have a small population, we know our neighbors, and we care about them.  I know firsthand how generous and expansive our community can be.  Our son was born and raised in this valley.  He loved it here.  This was always his Home.  His ashes have been released into a small stream and over the land that held his heart.  He is in the air, on the wind, among the pines.  He is in this snowfall, today.  I am watching, listening, writing...