The Grove
Just breathe...
Our little vagabond trailer rests in a small RV park in Anacortes WA. The boat is hauled out in a yard about 3 miles away, safe and dry, waiting for spring. The park is forested and there is a grove of 150 year old cedars behind the trailer. Echo and I chat with them every morning as the sun comes up and we take our morning pee.
I exercise Echo's broken toe in short walks past the cedars, through a broken fence and into an open field in a quiet cemetery. She is doing well, puts more weight on it every day, runs and skips, smiles. Left alone, life repairs.
Our trailer living days are coming to an end. Neither of us want to live in the box anymore. It was our refuge on the road, allowed us to travel comfortably between big national parks and outbacks. But our wanderlust is quenched after three years of roaming. It’s time to settle.
We will launch Tushita again in March. Move aboard for the season. I will teach sailing at a couple of local schools, Dawn will manage her thrift store and build community. But living on the boat in this part of the country ain’t sustainable. Moorage is expensive, the boat must be maintained - more money - and we miss caring for a piece of earth - digging in the dirt - growing our own.
Society does not reward sailing instructors and thrift store managers with vast riches - we aint lawyers or bankers or politicians or tech bros. There will be no financial windfall - we still must survive on a vagabond shoestring.
The question before us then, is this: how to transition from this RV vagabond sailor life to landbound house dwelling rustics? We don’t have a pot o gold, don’t have any land, dont have rich relatives, got no silver spoon. We do have skills and heart and love. We are enchanted.
I posed this question to the tribe of elder cedars standing behind the trailer. Echo nuzzled the leafy detritus and I admired the sunrise. It was cool - maybe 35 degrees - high grey clouds wisped in from the ocean, smell of pine and wet earth, a watery, quiet sunrise.
What next? I asked them. Trees being very patient, it took some little time for them to think about the question and respond. They work on a different timescale than we primates and don’t communicate with language, it’s slower and deeper than that. I took a deep breath….another….and in their peace, in their solidity, in their immaculate presence I had my answer.
Settle in the here and now.
Reach down into the center
where the world is not spinning
and drink this holy peace.
Feel relief flood into every
cell. Nothing to do. Nothing
to be but what you are already.
Nothing to receive but what
flows effortlessly from
mystery into form.
Nothing to run from or run
toward. Just this breath,
awareness knowing itself as
embodiment. Just this breath,
awareness waking up to truth.
—Just This Breath by Danna Faulds