"Moon River"

Life is so simple if I just sit still. I am learning "little by little the art of being content by doing very little slowly." (This is a line from a very good old British sitcom.) At least, that is my mantra. Be still and do nothing.

I moved in April from my beloved home that I called Stepping Stones. Why? It was time. Just as I had moved from my home of twenty-five years on Terrace Street in Arlington because it had given me all the sheltering and nurturing that it could; so it was with Stepping Stones. I found that I had to move on. I found myself needing aloneness; a state of being I have always found fascinating whether it be monastic, imprisonment, institutional or other; whether self imposed or not. John's and Jesus' time spent in the dessert. Buddha, before them, leaving his kingdom as a prince to live the life of a wanderer in search of the meaning to life. In modern times, a young man named Christopher McCandless exits a life planned for him by his parents and well provided for by his parents, to wander the country and eventually to go "Into the Wild" in Alaska to kill the false self only to meet his death in the process.

My home, which I call Moon River after the song that was "our song" when my husband and I were dating, is somewhat a journey into the wild; or so I thought when we bought it. We live in a 775 square foot house with lots and lots of cubic feet and it is made of wood and glass. Lots of windows and high ceilings. I wanted to name it The Cloister; but my husband wasn't ready for the life it suggested. It is in the pine forest of East Texas; so much a forest that I did not realize how many neighbors I have nor how close they are (nothing like an urban area however). But I can have as much or as little solitude as I like.

The irony is that for perhaps the first time in my life I truly have found community. Though I have belonged to social organizations before, I have never before felt a part of a community. Of course, this is due to my own fault. I have always been willing to give or offer help or friendship; but I am only now learning to ask for the same. I, Sandra, actually admitted I had limitations and that I needed help; not when I was trying to move a triple dresser made of heavy wood, nor when I was moving heavy furniture to the upstairs of our new home. No I was too stubborn to admit any limitations and used sheets underneath the stuff to pull them to the desired place. However, when my husband was ill recently and my van would not start due to depleted battery; I asked a friend to go into town, a 20 mile round trip, to pick up a prescription for him. She was happy to do it. I felt absolutely great asking her to do it. It was hard for me but it was typical of the community spirit I am learning exists among mankind if I simply allow it.

So Moon River has been a walk in the wilderness for me; but it has taught me that there is a time for aloneness and even a need for it, and paradoxically that often in solitude, one finds the desire even the need for the companionship of others.

Just as Mr. McCandless learned in Alaska, happiness needs to be shared. I am so very grateful for Moon River. It is a turning point in my life. Now I know I can receive as well as give. In fact, I like it this way.