Day 957. (The Final Day) For weeks now I have been telling myself that when this day came I would simply write 'The End' and be done with it but alas here I am having woken long before the dawn (at 3:19 actually) after getting almost exactly six hours of sleep so I may as well use this time to write something a bit longer than what I was originally planning on. Stories that end with that two word phrase have always left me feeling dissatisfied so I should probably avoid doing it myself and give it a little more effort than that and see what emerges.
I was not trying to awaken this early and was actually hoping to sleep in some but given how early I fell asleep last night it is not all that surprising that once I grew marginally aroused towards wakefulness after having a really peculiar dream about all these facets of my life (and the people I know or have known) merging into one large confluence of activity (a pseudo-festive gathering of some sort) and me myself being rather nonplussed and just wanting to return home to the companionship of my dogs...I drifted awake and started petting all the dogs, telling them I love them and that we had a big day ahead of us full of all sorts of changes and that we would be starting over again at a new place like we have done numerous times before. They generally just keep snoozing away when I pet them that early in the morning but today they got highly animated so I guess they are as excited about a change of scenery as I am.
Rather immediately my mind started racing down the now well-worn tracks of what I have left to do here to get moved and what I have to do to get setup at the new place and with a miraculous feat of sheer willpower I brought both lines of thinking to an abrupt halt and told myself to just soak in the modicum of comfort I was feeling because it was probably the last time I would feel it for a while because tomorrow I will undoubtedly be waking up in a tent with all my daily routines shattered and the consistency of my days skewed because everything will still be packed away, nothing will really be setup to my liking and I will be required to adapt (mind, body and soul) to a new scenario which is not all that bad in and of itself but it damn sure seems rather unnecessary especially after putting so much into the place that I am currently at and finding myself saying goodbye to.
At some point yesterday I sat down outside while eating a few pears and cast mind back to what the place looked like upon my arrival and all the changes that had occurred during my stay here and the one thing that really stood out to me about the particular area where I have been living at is how I helped transform a mucky thorn infested patch of land into one heck of a 'yard' where not just grass and clover now grows thickly but also a massive variety of medicinal and edible plants are actually thriving accompanied by all the critters that are attracted to them like rabbits, deer, bees, butterflies and birds. What really stood out to me though was that my thoughtful 'meddling' with nature had created something truly beautiful and there is no reason I cannot do the same thing again in another place given the time, resources and willingness to do so. I guess it all goes to show that humans can have a beneficial impact upon the earth given a little forethought and not being overly arrogant about enforcing their will upon nature and allowing nature to exert it's will upon us and through keen observation and diligence we can help accommodate that growth.
As with most places the land I am moving to has been affected by human behavior but as previously mentioned (several days ago) it is at least not littered with decades of trash, over hunted and basically abused ad infinitum in every way possible. It has been logged (perhaps a few times) at some point in the distant past but at this point nearly everywhere has been. What is obvious there is that it was never given any follow-up tinder love and care to help make the woodland area a healthy and vibrant place which is rather common also. So my mission (thankfully already made easier by the landowners there having already begun working on it over the last several years) is to help restore that vibrancy and establish a healthy woodland, free of invasive flora, thriving with native flora and restored to some of it's original majestic beauty before past generations of humans mucked up the scenario. Given it is a small piece of property I am delighted that I can focus on quality of beneficial impact instead of quantity of said impact. In other words having a small area to curate and be a land steward to will be a nice change of pace for me and I am excited to see what sort of magical little faerie land I can help cultivate there especially since I will by no means be doing it alone or 'doing things the hard way.'
On a different note it has been getting much cooler the last few evenings and Autumn is definitely in the air and given that where I am moving to is at a higher elevation and where I will be camping is a bit exposed to wind (because of the terrain) I am not going to have much time to really decompress from this particular journey because I am going to be hard pressed to get myself setup for the imminent colder weather. Honestly I do not know how the hell I am going to do it because this whole moving thing is going to leave me without enough funds to even purchase my monthly supplies. I will probably even opt out of keeping my phone service on and spend that money on dog food because I don't see any way around having to do so. I won't have much in the way of 'free time' either because I will be busting ass getting my critical infrastructure in place which always takes longer than I think it will. I always say that my lifestyle is by no means 'plug and play' but at least after this particular phase of my life it is a hell of a lot closer than it ever has been. A big game changer this time around is that I have that portable, lightweight and easy to install dog yard that I designed which will assuredly make things much easier because at first I will be setting up my sleeping tent (or the mini-shelter) inside of it which will undoubtedly make training the dogs on a new site much simpler. Thankfully the dogs adapt more rapidly to new surroundings than I myself do which oddly enough helps me to acclimate quicker.
I will assuredly gripe and grumble along the way because hey what good would I be without embracing my superpower 'angst' to drive me towards bettering my quality of life and perpetuating a wee bit of comfort for myself but eventually I will undoubtedly get 'settled in' with my new environ and probably even have some fun along the way which is something that has been almost painfully lacking the last several years of my life here given all the stressors involved but hey I made it through, I did what I said I would do, I accomplished or attempted to accomplish my goals and now my not-so-grand experiment is drawing towards it's inevitable point of completion and I will have to just digest the results before I truly know the fullness of what I have learned from said experiment.
Something that I am exquisitely looking forward to is that I can finally stop all this fucking writing about 'having to move' and get back to spelling out my ponderous thoughts and sharing more productive things along the way. The last several months have been utterly grueling in that regard but I have done my best to not overly complain along the way. Thanks for bearing with me and not encouraging me to be outraged and angry about how things worked (didn't work) out here. I actually share the view that many folks have that the next phase of my life will absolutely be quite the upgrade and one that ultimately will help me to continue to cultivate a deeper peace of mind, sense of well-being and mayhaps even the fulfillment of my dreams.
I hope that everyone is doing well, has a nice day/night, focuses on love over all other things, is kind to themselves and others and appreciative of the gift of life in all it's myriad forms. Much Love and all that jazzy feel good stuff. The end...or is it?
Well as a good friend is fond of saying: "That is about that!"
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Today's Obligatory Picture: My Little Homestead!
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