I love my balcony. It is long and comfortable and when I go outside to sit and write or read or just look at the sky it feels as though I can see the whole rotation of the earth, which always makes me think.
Right now clouds are blowing over, patches of pale grey and white cloud are breaking up and giving way to a sun washed blue. The sun is going down.
No matter where you are or how very badly you want to be somewhere else it seems to me there is always something to love about exactly where you are - right now. I've spent the last three days packing my things into the storage locker in preparation for Texas. Monday night I'll be in Boston - these are places I look forward to visiting and in the case of Austin, I hope very much to make it my second home eventually. But that does not change the beauty of the sunset, the freshness of the cool breeze sweeping the clouds from the sky, the peace of my own little place where arguments and tension do not intrude - ever.
People need retreats, I think. Everyone deserves sanctuary and solitude. It has been almost exactly a year since I moved into my little sanctuary and while I look forward to moving on, I do love and bless this place even with the periods of loneliness it has brought into my life with it.
People say that much of life is beyond their control and I am sure they're right but at the same time there are times when the elements combine to make something you thought was a compromise, something completely out of your control, into the right thing, exactly right.
My little solitary home, quiet, compact, humble in the extreme has been one of those exactly right things. And this is one of those exactly right moments - watching the sun go down through the clouds, watching the sky open above me, listening to quiet music, seeing the rain-washed streets below, the new green leaves on the trees at last and down the lane, a few children calling to each other as they play.
The birds are flying back to the islands in the Ottawa river for the night, a few lights are coming on in the houses and apartments around me, cars go by now and then carrying people home or out for the evening and I am alone and happy.
I am happy and if I had one wish right now it would be that I could always remember to be happy where I am and to know everything will turn out alright because in the end it always does and I would wish I could keep this mental snapshot of myself exactly as I am right now - at peace in the midst of the river of my life as it flows through this place and on to somewhere new.
random thoughts on the passage through an ordinary life.
About Me
- Stephanie Farrington
- I figure if there's an average person, it's probably me. That is to say, I have lived in a few places, probably about average, I have a post-secondary education and an unfinished MFA - which is probably average for people who pursue and education, I'm hitting middle age, my job has been downsized and resized so many times it's safe to say I've never had any job security. I live an average life on the precarious edge of the middle class. I'm happily married to an American, I hold Canadian citizenship, for now. But I'm so disgusted with just about everything going on in Canada that I may pursue changing my citizenship to match my husband's. I am fiercely loyal to American ideals, in part because they make sense and in part because I am descended from a signer of the Declaration of Independence. The idea of an equitable democracy, a meritocracy - that appeals to me. I write, I read, talk, take pictures and worry - just like everybody else. The hopes I hold most dear are for the health and well being of my immediate family, myself included, and the continuance of my happy life with my wonderful husband. Everything else seems manageable.
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