severing

The setting for our retreat is beautiful. A lovely house situated directly over a lily pond. Beautiful wood floors, spacious rooms for visiting with others, or being alone. Two porches that wrap completely around the house: one the ground floor and one on the second floor.

The grounds that surround it are lush garden; green wherever you look. Although there are other cabins, few of them are occupied, and we can wander where we want relatively uninterrupted. The landscaping is creative, and there are benches and swings and tables scattered throughout for sitting and just soaking in the nature.

Unfortunately, soaking is the operative word for the weekend. It started raining as we were driving here, and it hasn't stopped since. This place has a nice pool, but I doubt it's going to get any use from us.

Also unfortunately, the best internet connection is by the pool, and it was raining so hard last night that I didn't want to drag my computer up there to post anything. This morning, while still soggy, has at least settled to a dull drizzle.

I wandered out early, awake before the rest of the house. I am feeling a heaviness in my soul and it woke me up and kept me up. (That and the wat [temple] next door, starting special holiday music at about 5:30.) I took a trail to the very back of the property and climbed to the top of a look-out tower.

I feel very lost about our future, the upcoming year of sabbatical. Many things still seem so unclear. I guess my hope in climbing that tower was to get a better perspective. Kind of a metaphor for my life. I thought it would at least make me feel better to see SOMETHING clearly.

No luck, though. The tower got me above the tree line, but just barely. Ends up, all I could actually see was the tops of trees. The landscape was actually even more obscured from up there. I couldn't see any of the cabins. Just leaves and one or two rooftops. Disappointed, I wandered down again.

As I strolled I realized the main thing I am feeling right now is a sense of loss. A sense of amputation. I look to the near future, and dread a sort of severing.

We will leave this place with the likelihood of never coming back. And even though it has not been necessarily easy to live here, it has been home for the past 12 years. Some things about it I will truly miss. Some things, although they annoy me now, will become nostalgic as I am away from them.

We had a conversation with the leadership of our organization recently, and it looks like that relationship, too, will come to an end. Amicably, I believe, which is very positive. But yet another severing. With that break comes a loss of security: income, insurance, etc.

Admittedly, “…it won't break my heart to say good-bye” to some of the aspects of working with our organization or living life here. But it is change. And change in and of itself is hard. Not always positive, not always negative, but always hard.