sustainable living
Midlife Crisis Still in Progress!
Since we’re waiting for some more progress on our new home after another snow storm, I thought you might enjoy reading my thoughts from last year at this time:
There’s nothing like a crisis to define who you are. Like the way my own midlife crisis showed me the way to a brand new life, one where I made better personal choices.
Now a new crisis is turning our lives upside down… but in a good way.
Mike’s disability has made it clear that he cannot work 40 hours a week any longer. So we have decided to move to the place where we would prefer to live, in the kind of setting where we always pictured ourselves.
This week we made our first major commitment to our new future by purchasing three acres at the top of the foothills. (See the view above from our new land.) We also began discussions with builders… our dream begins to come alive.
I’m starting to be able to imagine how awesome (a word I seldom use!) it will be to live in our new solar home down in southern Colorado, and the freedom this alternative lifestyle will offer us. It almost makes all of the hard work we will have to do between now and then worthwhile.
I have been thinking a lot lately about all of the reasons why some decide to stay in place at retirement, while others move someplace else. It strikes me that moving is not for the weak of body or spirit. You need to start early with a strong desire for an alternative lifestyle.
Mike and I have always wanted to get out of the suburbs. When I first met Mike nine years ago, he said he would not move again unless he could get a great view out of the deal. Well, I guess we will have that soon, plus a much more environmentally-friendly, relaxed rural lifestyle.
Every time we go south now, it becomes more difficult to return to our home up north. I guess that’s a positive sign!
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Aging and Letting Go of STUFF!
It seems natural to begin paring down possessions as we get past age 50 or 60. What brings about this growing need for letting things go? In our case moving helped a whole lot! I learned last spring exactly how exhausting moving can be, both physically and emotionally.
We chose to build a smaller passive solar home for a number of reasons. Cost was a major concern, and parallel to that was a desire to conserve natural resources.
For each of us the question becomes how much personal space is enough? What is just right without over doing it? We have no growing family, and only a small need for guest space.
I learned from moving this past year, that getting rid of your stuff can be a positive but gradual process. You get rid of a small amount and then realize that wasn’t so painful, so you take a bit more to the Goodwill. Before you know it you’ve sent a quarter of your stuff away and don’t even miss it. I pictured walking into the local Goodwill and seeing my stuff everywhere!
Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful!
There comes a time when “the stuff” no longer brings joy, but instead weighs you down. Your old stuff can equal old memories that no longer improve your present. It feels like your past is crowding in on you.
You soon learn that when you become truly selective in what you keep and what you gift back to the world, you are only left with the BEST STUFF … Or maybe, like me, you simply get tired of packing boxes and quit!
Sacred Journeys, Sacred Mountains…
After watching an episode of Sacred Journeys on PBS, one which included a bit about the sacredness of mountains in Asian thought, I realized how fundamentally important it feels to now own land with views of our own sacred mountains.
The Spanish Peaks, pictured above, have a centuries-old history of sacredness. Dating back far before the Europeans arrived, this area was a crossroads of the American West. Taos Pueblo, located in northern New Mexico today, has been a major Native American trading center for over 1,000 years. One trail headed north out of Taos into the San Luis Valley, crossing east over Sangre de Cristo Pass, through the gap between Rough Mountain and Sheep Mountain.
Various Native American tribes like the Ute, the Navajo, the Jicarilla Apache and the Comanche passed through this valley regularly. To them the Spanish Peaks stood out because they seemed to emerge out of nowhere up to 13,000 feet running east and west, not north to south like the rest of the Rocky Mountains.
The natives peoples considered this a sacred place of ceremony. As far as they were concerned, this is where mankind first emerged from the womb of the earth. In other words, this was their own Garden of Eden.
The Ute Indians named these two peaks Huajatolla (pronounced Wa-ha-toy-a), meaning the “two breasts” which translates as “Breasts of the Earth”.
I loved learning this ancient history, which I first heard about when Robert Mirabal came here to perform this past July.
We moved here to create a dynamic relationship with these mountains, this landscape and the lovely silence. Mike and I have both traveled to many parts of the world. We now find the inward journey more dynamic and essential than outward ones.
For us this is a sacred place, one where we can celebrate and appreciate the beauty of nature every single day, while continuing a long tradition of sustainable living.
Learn more about what it’s like to move from city life to the country for a slower, quieter, more sustainable life in my new memoir. Just send me an e-mail for a great price!
MidlifeCrisisQueen@gmail.com
Adventures of the NEW??? Old Farts 