Presence

Last week, I wrote about how there’s a time for everything, so I suppose it’s apropo, now that the first snow has fallen Western Mass, to talk about stillness. Groundedness.

This post is a somewhat troubled love letter to our wooded property here at Aster Hill, which is beautiful and unique and charming, but frankly, sometimes a pain in the ass.

For those who don’t know, we live in a log home. Not a log-looking home, not a Sunset Magazine cover log home, but an uninsulated, home-hewn, logs-from-the-land log home. With 2000 square feet to heat in winter, not counting the 1000 feet of finished basement.

It’s a lot.

We use wood heat exclusively, so we thought it would be a good idea to upgrade to an EPA-approved, eco-friendly wood stove. You know, for efficiency. And the planet. Which, $4000 later, turns out to be efficient only if your home is already efficient. Which…if it was…why would we…? Questions abound.

What this wood stove does do, from November to ??? (probably May) is force us to slow down. It gets cold in the house at night. It takes time to baby the fire each morning, coaxing the house up to temp. We can’t push a button or set a thermastat and get on with our day. We gaze at the flames a lot. Sometimes wringing our (cold) hands.

If we want to go off-property to do something, we know we’ll be coming back home to a cold house. Chores to do in the dark. Animals to feed. We went to see Wicked the other day, and while it was a great time, it was also a whole thing. The movie theater is over an hour away, for starters. We knew we’d be coming home after sunset. That there would be ice to break up on the chicken waterer. Wood to cart. A fire, always, always, to start.

We’re planning a day trip to Manhattan soon, which will elevate ‘whole thing’ to ‘ordeal’. Gone 15 hours? The pipes could freeze. The automated coop door might not close. The dogs will need a babysitter. We’re not used to a place depending on us like this. Anchoring us to one spot. We’re used to traveling, road tripping, going.

For so long, I’ve been asking myself, where to next?

It’s startling, and slightly unnerving, know that finally, the answer is, here.

I need to be here.

This house needs us.

And in these quiet, grounded moments by the fire, these moments of forced stillness, I realize we also need it.