Nomadic apprenticeship

This summer, we are four years into our apprenticeship to nomadic life. We are mastering this art of parking ourselves quickly, of settling rapidly into a place. The nuances of sun and shade, of bug protection, comfort and beauty; the deployment of books and food and clothes, the un-bungee cording of drawers and moveable items. This we have done quickly here in our friend Renzo’s field. But what takes longer is the settling of our wandering spirits. Are we staying for a while or a week? Can we find a daily rhythm that suits our souls? Finished with the distraction of packing and moving and unpacking, we have to face again those questions that are never far away lately, but are muffled by the noise of Magnolia’s engine and the multiple demands of moving our home: How to live? What to do? Freedom ain’t for the faint of heart.

We are in Essex Center, on top of Brigham Hill. We can see Camel’s Hump and Mt Mansfield from here, so we know we are in Vermont. The bus is parked within sight of Renzo’s childhood home, a 180-year old brick house which she rebuilt with her own hands, brick by brick - not far from her nephew Al’s sugar house. He says it was a bumper year for maple syrup. We share this “space” with lots of sister Ivy (aka poison) ivy crows and cardinals, mosquitoes, deer flies and wasps. Mostly they respect the filmy screens that delineate the boundaries between inside and outside. And at night, there is the sparkling mating dance of a thousand fireflies.

This morning, an Essex police car cruised slowly by, twice, looking for...what? Does the highly esteemed, venerable and elegant Magnolia of our eyes really looks like a mere hippy magic bus?!!!