Formed by the Forest

The noise level changed pitch along our long rural road, as we strolled passed neighborhood generators. The power had been out for days, and we were out walking, dodging small rockslides, and new cracks in the old street.

When we moved to the woods we thought we were doing something wonderful for our future children. “They will love nature” I said, envisioning a scene out of a Disney movie, our children skipping through the meadow with forest creatures, flowers in their hair.

Reality is rough. The first year we lived in the woods a seven-year drought broke and a hundred year freeze befell us. We were ankle deep in water, and our pipes froze solid while I was in the shower with soap in my hair. After trenches, insulating tape, drains and a sump pump we thought we were all set. But then came the

falling trees, washed out driveway, angry raccoons and mailbox thieves. We lived through mud, landslides, and the long drive to the emergency room when My husband lost part of his finger in a woodworking accident. We chopped fallen trees into firewood, and fixed rotting decks while other families did room additions, took vacations and went to block parties. Our children loved nature, as we had hoped, but they also missed out on the community a neighborhood can bring.

We sometimes think about that, about how our life decisions might have created some of the hardships we faced later, as the children were growing. The social challenges, loneliness, drugs and persistent oddness of girls who are not afraid of the dark, of frogs or spiders, and who eschew heels for hiking boots. Who would they have been if we had chosen a more conventional life?Would they be more social? Less thoughtful? Happier? More "normal?"

Tonight, with the power out, in the light of my fading laptop I watch my younger child curled up in front of the fire with our Labrador. She reads by candlelight, holding her book with one hand while absently stroking the dog’s head with the other.

My phone dings gently. “I wish I were there with you,” texts my older daughter, now living in a gloomy, gray, urban place that never loses power. I send her a heart.

The gifts of our life here are numerous. Our privacy, our closeness, the ability to sit in silence or solitude. The stars we see that only show themselves in the darkest places.

I forget sometimes, to take the gifts that are given to us by our circumstances, to let ourselves experience the ebb and flow of our lives. To note the bounty that we have in the moment, and to appreciate them. Not wishfull for what might have been, but the beauty of what is.