Holding Our Things Lightly

It’s a wonderful thing to know that certain things can always make you happy, but that you don’t need them to still be happy.

“What is an unexpected, favorite thing about being in your new house?” I asked.

She took her time with a thoughtful, matter-of-fact answer: “I guess it’d be how easy the mornings are. The mornings could be really cold.”

You should know that this friend, about whom I could write essays of admiration, has just wrapped up a long season of living in canvas tents. For two of the last three years, she and her husband and four young kids have lived in tents on their property while their home was being built. What was supposed to be a several-month family adventure turned into a multi-year experience, due, I think, to some wacky red-tape issues with permitting.

This remarkable woman knows what it’s like to live very literally outside a comfort zone, to make do, to experience the frustration of things not working out—and to keep going anyway. A fire started very near her new home just last week, and as she drove toward the plumes of smoke, she was anxious only because her kids were at home, not …