... from a Cottage in the Trees

The girl wrangled; with her emotions, her duties, her dreams… she tried to make sense of all that was happening inside her, but it was hard. Damn hard.

She reminisced about years gone by when she would stuff her backpack with all that she needed and head off on a flight to somewhere new. Somewhere exciting. Where she knew that she would be able to pound the pavements in search of places for people to stay, talking to restaurant owners and hoteliers, working out what she might write. All that space to think about anything she wanted. All those evenings spent creating sentences, drinking coffee, sharing cigarettes with nameless strangers who would tell her stories of new places, different lives.

She liked that.

Back then life was easy, she thinks. Back then the girl didn’t have to think about anyone but herself, and the prospect of taking off at any given moment held little guilt, required no more thought than what to pack – walking boots or walking flip-flops?

Life feels different now, she thinks. Life is filled with other hearts and minds and somehow life can, at times, run away. In recent weeks she has felt stranded and overwhelmed by what her life means. She has looked upon it from a distance and tried to understand, what is best now? What is good and right? For her, for everyone around her, and suddenly the realisation came that right now is not the time to leap completely. Right now is the time to half-leap, in preparation for a leap… or not.

But thoughts of a soulless house on a busy street being suffocated by central heating, kept her awake at night and as she listened to the pitter-patter of rain on canvas she thought, “perhaps I’ll stay here?” Of course, the girl knew that this was crazy and that a better plan must be made, not least because her daughter had found a picture in a book at Grandma’s and announced, “I want to live here Mummy.” 

But Mummy didn’t know how to find that house so she closed her eyes and in desperation put every ounce of her trust in fate.

Then suddenly, there it was, the answer in three small words:

Rural . Farm . Cottage .

So she went to see it and of course was charmed by the rickety fireplace, the lack of modernisation, the prospect of three jumpers on winter evenings (in bed) and she knew alright; knew that this was the place to keep her safe for a while. So now the girl has many birds and a pony in her garden and nothing but the sound of trees blowing in the wind through her open window at night. The sky is dark, the stars bright and fields stretch out ahead of her in all directions. There are smiles and much laughter and somehow fate has done it again, for the girl could not have asked for anything more perfect, really.

She doesn’t know what will happen next, but she knows that right now she likes where she is and sometimes that’s all you can ask for…

"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment." ~ Buddha.