{"id":29192,"date":"2019-08-19T13:20:27","date_gmt":"2019-08-19T19:20:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=370173"},"modified":"2019-08-19T13:20:27","modified_gmt":"2019-08-19T19:20:27","slug":"lark-ascending-coming-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/local-news\/lark-ascending-coming-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Lark Ascending: Coming home"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
Christina Holbrook<\/strong>
Courtesy photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Will you seek afar off? You surely come back at last,<\/em><\/p>\n

In things best known to you, finding the best, or as good as the best,<\/em><\/p>\n

In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest;<\/em><\/p>\n

Happiness, knowledge, not in another place but this place \u2013 not for another hour but this hour\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 Walt Whitman, \u201cLeaves of Grass\u201d<\/p>\n

While we were away on vacation in Maine, I couldn\u2019t help checking out the local Maine real estate that was for sale.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at this, a Victorian cottage, right beside the ocean!\u201d I also found a farmhouse I liked on 15 acres. How easy it was to imagine moving, to have a new experience.<\/p>\n

I knew this was an unrealistic distraction, but at the same time, it was fun to dream about an alternate life, in which Alan and I traded the mountains for the ocean, or decided to raise goats on a farm and start our own goat cheese operation.<\/p>\n

Somehow, these past few weeks of summer had unleashed a gnawing sense of restlessness in me.<\/p>\n

Back home in Breckenridge, I felt uneasy and couldn\u2019t settle down. I sat in front of my bookshelf, as if some of my favorite books would give me clues as to what was causing this unquiet feeling: Was the answer to be found in a far-off adventure, as the writers of  \u201cInto Thin Air\u201d or \u201cThe Snow Leopard\u201d might suggest? Or like the authors of \u201cA Country Year\u201d or \u201cWind in the Willows,\u201d would I find the great adventure closer to home?<\/p>\n

Then one title jumped out at me: \u201cThe Places That Scare You,\u201d by the Buddhist teacher Pema Ch\u00f6dr\u00f6n. I knew that place. It was here, where I am, at this very moment. And I was having a hard time accepting that.<\/p>\n

 \u201cWe really don\u2019t want to stay with the nakedness of our present experience,\u201d writes Ch\u00f6dr\u00f6n. \u201cAre we experiencing restlessness? Stay! Discursive mind? Stay! Are fear and loathing out of control? Stay! \u2026 What am I doing here? Stay!\u201d<\/p>\n

I tried to settle down.  I tried to \u201cstay.\u201d<\/p>\n

The backyard was quiet after our weeks away, and I filled up the bird feeder with seeds and mixed sugar water for the hummingbird feeder. By afternoon, my dog Luke and I were sitting on a bench in the yard, surrounded by the noise and busy activity of birds and one loud, scolding squirrel. I was trying to \u201cstay.\u201d<\/p>\n

A friend texted to find out if I was home from vacation and invited me for a walk. I tried to \u201cstay\u201d with my uneasiness. She is a good listener, and as we hiked through the aspens, I blurted out the thing that feels most scary and out of control in my life right now: The fact that my mother, who has been sick for several years, is now coming to the end of her life.<\/p>\n

I have busied myself with trying to coordinate care and finances, discussing the situation with my brother and sister, figuring out what will happen with my mom\u2019s cat. I have been trying to control the uncontrollable \u2014 the fact that my mother is dying \u2014 with all my activity.<\/p>\n

 \u201cWithout realizing it, we continually shield ourselves from pain because it scares us,\u201d Ch\u00f6dr\u00f6n writes.<\/p>\n

It is easier to imagine moving to Maine or running a goat farm, than to \u201cstay\u201d with that pain and to be present to the idea of a world without my mom in it. <\/p>\n

A few nights later, Alan and I sat in our backyard with a neighbor who had brought over corn and tomatoes from Palisade and chard from her garden. We ate outside, where the daisies were blooming in the field, and the sun was going down over Peak One. How good it is to be home, I realized, \u201cNot in another place \u2014 but this place.\u201d  <\/p>\n

Ch\u00f6dr\u00f6n: \u201cBy simply staying here \u2026 it feels like stepping out of a fantasy world and discovering the simple truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here, with our neighbors and our friends, we have shared the simple joys of this life: walks up the logging trail with real-time text reports of local moose sightings, keeping an eye on each others dogs, celebrations of our work or creative successes. And we\u2019ve shared each other\u2019s pain and hard times, too. We\u2019ve stayed with each other through illness, broken hearts, death of people we love. All of it. <\/p>\n

Instead of starting a goat farm in Maine, I\u2019d rather be here, home. I\u2019d rather just \u201cstay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Christina Holbrook\u2019s column \u201cLark Ascending\u201d publishes biweekly in the Summit Daily News. Holbrook writes about life in the mountains, from the beauty of the natural surroundings to the quirkiness of friends and neighbors to what makes a good life. She moved to Breckenridge in 2014 and is the author of \u201cWinelands of Colorado.\u201d Contact her at<\/em> peak1studio@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christina HolbrookCourtesy photo Will you seek afar off? You surely come back at last, In things best known to you, finding the best, or as good as the best, In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest; Happiness, knowledge, not in another place but this place \u2013 not for another hour but this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-29192","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-24 14:34:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KIFT - The LIFT FM","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}