I wasn’t looking for another house-sit when the house truck came along but that’s the way it usually happens isn’t it?
It was a little over two years since torrential rain caused a landslide to fall on the home I shared with my friend Maggie. Since then I had been living a nomadic life. I can count 51 moves in two years and that’s not counting all the to-ing and fro-ing to overnight with friends. So even though some sits were for two months or more, that’s an average of one home every two weeks.
I had been thinking of settling for a while, not exactly putting down roots but renting a little place and resting for a few months, and there were several attractive options I was considering. Then one day I was standing in the Wholemeal Café having a conversation with an old friend when the ad caught my eye: “House Truck available for 8 months in return for taking care of my dog.” I wrote the number down not sure if I would call, now ten days later I was looking the place over.
For anyone not familiar with what a house truck is, it’s like a big converted bus or mobile home. This one is rectangular like a shipping container on wheels with a few steep wooden steps at the entrance. A whole home is contained within that one tiny space. At the far end is a raised bed area with queen size mattress, then the shower and kitchen and living area at the front.
The word that sang out at me as I stepped in was SIMPLICITY and my soul sang back YES. Simplicity – even the word sounds delicious. There’s a big window along one side looking East out to sea and across the Bay. I saw myself sitting there every morning with my laptop and a coffee, writing and watching the sunrise. YES sang my soul.
In that moment I remembered the most important thing for me this year is to create a sacred life. I’d made a decision at the turn of the year that I was going to live this year as if it is my last. Eight years earlier, I had lived very near here in a rustic house on a big acreage I called the Garden of Eden. I had lived a sacred life then, combining my passions for innovative transformative learning, community building and writing with oceans of meditation, daily walks on the beach, deep soul friendships and discovery conversations, and ecstatic communion with nature. I had left abruptly when a financial crisis was the catalyst to take me to America and I didn’t come back for three and a half years. I was intrigued that I was now being offered a second chance at living in my own favourite soul sanctuary. YES sang my soul.
And then there were the two dogs, Happy and Gem, father and daughter. I had left a dog behind when I returned from America, Cheyenne. I had missed him terribly and longed for a dog of my own but the house-sitting adventure had made this impractical. If I was to live a sacred life then big fountains of joy were central to that and happy dogs are the most joyful creatures – my play and laughter quotient multiplies tenfold when I’m around them. Now here were two good looking dogs, remarkably similar in appearance to Chey, desperate to be friendly and run after balls, sniff along hedgerows, lick my face and give me doggy kisses and snuggle with their weight in the small of my back. My soul sang YES.
And when your soul sings so loud, there’s not a lot you can do about it really but follow.
March 2014
Comments are closed.