The little white cottage in the woods

The house in the roses: 

Amazing blue and orange sunsets have been seeing us to sleep each night lately, and the biggest, clear skies have welcomed us home with opened arms.  If I stand in any of the open fields round here and look ahead toward the horizon, I can see that our earth is not flat, but rather it is convex everywhere…  I love driving on these completely clear plateaus with no obstacles between me and the horizon and consider the perfect roundness of our world.  These country roads of the NW tend to do that and always bring in me that sensation.  The openness of miles and miles of yellow fields, and the fact that we don’t have the abundance of trees we have in the south obstructing our vision on the ground, give us a clear view all-around for miles and miles of our wonderfully made round world. 

I should be joyful and eager to start this new life ahead of us, but it is a stressful time and on many a day I cannot feel or see the goodness that is in me anymore.  As if my soul is being shadowed by an edgy film… tense, and having or showing a harsh or unkind quality.  And I don’t like those feelings.  They are not me.  And they are.  And I don’t care anymore if I don’t feel sympathetic toward these people who while we were away from our dear house in the roses, had rented it and destroyed it. 

The garden is gone.  The house is a disaster.  It must be painted in its totality, soiled carpets need be removed, scratched and water damaged hardwood floors refinished and all the stainless-steel appliances replaced—abused and badly scratched as they have left them.  I’m not nice.  I don’t want to be nice.  I want to ask these people to get out and pay for all the damage they have done.  But I can’t.  We hadn’t even asked them for a deposit to start with.  We have learned our lesson.  Neither I want to know or think about the $12,000 the painting companies are asking us to have the job done.  And this is not counting the floorings or the new appliances.  At this point, I haven’t found a painter that would agree to my budget yet, and must probably I will have to do it all myself.   I am stressed, disappointed and disheartened, and I must return to the South on Thursday and deal with the move and the added stress related to the sale of our little white cottage.    

The day after tomorrow is my birthday.  I wish upon a star on dreams untold, and I wish that upon our definite return to the house in the roses all those dreams will be fulfilled.  I need to stumble upon my old, peaceful self again, embrace a life of solitude and prayer and relearn how to fly high, in hope and faith and abundant gratitude.  I feel ugly inside, and I must embark myself in a quest for the beauty of the spirit, for I have left all these graces somewhere along the road of temporality, and need them back in my life.