The Cottage : Rennovation

Welcome, welcome to my favorite place on Earth. This is the spot I have traveled far to establish. This is the place I long for when I am gone. The cottage is located 15 feet from the intersection of a creek and stream and sounds like heaven at night when all you can hear is water gurgling over rocks.

Every now and then, when I am traveling for work, I think maybe I should move, make my life abit more convenient. Home is where I make it, right? Then I go home and stand under the nightsky, drink coffee by the creek and I realize how special this place is. I have invested my heart here. This is where I can actually hear the world and the things God wants me know. I can not hear them other places. Everything becomes static and I start to feel lost. My home is in the trees, by the water, under a blanket of stars. 

Years ago, I lived in a shack on the beach in Southern California. It is where I raised my children. I always told them they would spend a lifetime trying to get back to this beautiful, simple life by the water. I watched my kids ride bikes all around town, smiling gleefully. They fell asleep in sheets line dried and smelling of fresh beach air. The farmers market was full of bounty there and we stocked up each Sunday. It, too, was a magical place.

As time went by, I began to feel a calling to a new kind of place. The place where I was raised. I could see my Grandparents’ faces and the sun streaming through trees in winter woods. I needed to go. After the kids all graduated and the time in my career revealed itself, I went. I bought an abandoned home in the woods on the other side of the country from a picture I saw online. I had no plan but I went anyway. And the journey began.

Any time, person or place that has been neglected requires a lot of work to bring back to life, a lot of gentility, a lot of listening to that place. To bring this home back was going to require just that. To revive my soul and discover the calling that brought me here would take even more.