What happened six years ago?
I moved – not just to a new house, nor even to a new country, but to a whole new way of living. I left a large town where I existed cheek by jowl with other stressed out people all trying to make it through each day the best they could. I arrived at my new home in the country where I would live alongside nature, surrounded by beauty, under clear star-studded night skies. I was able to reduce my medications as working outside became my new way of increasing endorphins.
The anniversary of the move was last Thursday, 10th October, which happens to coincide with World Mental Health Day. It has certainly proved to be my own special Mental Health Day. I had wanted to share thoughts and images of my new home but I also wanted to post about mental health specifically. So here is my Anniversary post.
The Old School
Nestled within our mountain view
rugged giants
soft-clad, soft-hue
Distant grey Victorian school
secure shelter
within stout-wall
Where children scribed on earth-born slate
fragile witness
to humble fate
Now buried in obscurity
cold hearth closed space
where lives ran free.
Did they clamber
our rock, our tree,
minds filled with curiosity?
Did they run in
where swings our gate
fearful they’d be accounted late?
Where our cars park
did they play ball,
use local river as their pool?
Watch swallows dart
knew where they flew,
Nestled within our mountain view?
I love where I live. I love thinking about those young lives who were here before. Do you feel strongly about where you live? Has being there turned your life around – for better or worse? Do you believe that a home can be such an influence on lives? Please join the conversation.
marilyn unmasked 