Crows on the Wire

The morning begins, as most do, with the CAW of the crows outside on the wire. . .  even here in the foggy coastal pre-dawn, it is as it was in the city. . .  and for that reminder I am grateful.

Moving from the city to a very small, oft forgotten, coastal town has already brought about the clarity I was seeking in the move. Ten years in a city, albeit a very progressive and nature-loving city, had worn me down. Draining the life out of me, as cities tend to do once we have grown beyond caring about the nightlife, the constant buzz and the exterior fascinations as all are distractions from who we are or where we are going. Or sometimes just reliefs from the truth we know too well.

Three weeks here and I feel compelled to write again. To make imagery. I feel compelled to dig in deeper to my own internal world and bring forth what has been stewing all those years.

To open fully.
To grow.

Looking back at those city years, it was a slow disintegration. I didn't wake up one day and decide I hated the city again. It slowly wore me down. Slowly ate away at the awe I hold for nature around me. And I mean by this, true nature not what many city dwellers, particularly in Portland, consider to be green or sustainable which is, by it's very definition, inclusive mostly of the well being of human beings only.

The truth is, as I began preparing to move, I heard story after story from others who "dream" of such a move. Of such a life. And, though I would often shake my head and smile, I felt like treating these people as I finally needed to with myself and bluntly saying "Then get off your ass and change your life, make decisions and leave things behind so you CAN move and live where you want.

It is cheaper here. Yes, that's right. Living on a clamming and fishing bay 5 minutes from the ocean is cheaper. Much cheaper. In a town set against the quickly rising hills that surround the bay,  I now walk two blocks to the Post Office and two blocks to the local bakery which serves up 3 freshly made doughnuts for one dollar! Three blocks to the local supermarket which FEELS like a local supermarket. . . smells like a local supermarket. . . as those A & P's of my youth always did.

Historic rail cars sit just across the road on their tracks and the local coffeehouse, what I really think a coffeehouse should be, welcomes community and conversation all day long as the proprietor serves up her amazing cranberry scones and freshly made chowder. Not 50 choices for every possible diet or "lifestyle choice". Just one delicious scone. Take it or leave it but don't complain about it.

I didn't realize how much people in the city complain.  How pervasive it is that even in writing it I had to really think if it were true. But it is. It is just that it becomes such a normal aspect of so many people's lives that it seems like normal conversation. But it is not. And I was falling into it as well.

So let's focus on here. . . THIS is where I have wanted to be. The town name is of no importance. It is the place. The setting.  The fact that here, I can reinvent myself and begin again in a place where others may see decay and economic repression, I find the beauty of what used to be, what is and what could be again.

My first day here a woman in the coffeehouse actually recognized me. Not from the city and businesses I owned there but from the small town I lived in on this coast some 15 years ago. From the bakery I owned and the sandwiches I made there all those years ago. It was a bit of a shock and unsettling to be truthful but also, I know it is a part of reinventing oneself. It is necessary to acknowledge all that has come before and to accept it. 

There are,as so many paragraphs that start, "there are two types of people". In this case I am speaking of those that feel compelled to remain in the habitat they grew up in and to do as the rest of the "herd" do those that can wander and move and adapt and who can make change in their lives and leave the past behind. Those who choose what is better for them. Even when "better" means a little harder or more uncertain.

We, of this group are the crows of the human world. We adapt and we move and we find ourselves making our way home in whatever landscape we  have chosen to dwell.

There is space here.
To roam
To breathe
To live out each day fully and to explore how to create a life that I WANT to live for the coming weeks and months and years.

Will it play out that way? Time will tell. . . and I know that the crows will watch it all from their vantage point and caw as they do everywhere, every day.

And I will smile at that here. . . as I always do.