It seemed like such an ordinary day: dog walk in the early morn, work, eat, write, and work some more. The day ended and with the coming dusk I headed up the Butte for a last bit of exercise. When I walk, I think with a consuming fury. Random thoughts, coordinated planning, long term dreaming, short term dinner plans. Perhaps I love to walk for hours each day because I don’t have many close friends with whom I can be vulnerable and spew all, so I walk and think. I keep few secrets from Bob, but my own best listener is the Dawn inside my head.
On the two mile trip to the top of the Butte I managed to keep my mind turned to the big issue of the day. An opportunity has come our way to buy a new house. It isn’t fancy; in fact it’s a fixer-upper. It has gone into foreclosure and isn’t even listed by the bank yet so very few others know about it. We expect the price to come in well below market value, which in today’s economic climate should make it affordable for us. We haven’t been actively looking to buy a home but we do have a decent bit of savings that we know we need to invest. There is one place in Bend than I love and I’ve always thought that if a house came for sale on a particular street, that we could afford, then we’d have to try and buy it. And now that has happened.
I know some people might think it is silly that I would dream of owning a home that is somewhat dilapidated, and it is on the wrong side of town, but it I do. The house is large for us, at about 1,400 sq ft. It is 50 years old and only has one bathroom. The reason I love it is that it sits on 12th Street, about four blocks east of our current home, and the back yard is Pilot Butte State Park. There are only eight homes that back up to the state park on its west flank and this is one of them. Also, it has large picture windows in the front offering wonderful views of the Cascade Mountain range. A lot of people might not see the potential in this property but it is a place where I would like to grow old. If I have to live in a city, Bend is it, and if I’m going to live in Bend I want to stay in the Orchard District. Now known as “Mid-town”, this neighborhood is full of diversity, working class families, ethnic flavor, old and young, poor and not so poor. Just imagine walking out your back gate and stepping into a 500 acre state park that will never be built upon and will provide walking paths though juniper, sage and pine until the end of my life anyway. We can barely afford to buy this house but since it has an attached in-law unit that could be fixed up and rented we could supplement our income enough to make this dream come true.
The down side is that it does require a good bit of money and time to make both units comfortable and if we ever go a month or two without a renter it could make our lives miserable. To ensure that we can afford it I will have to give up some of my writing and photography time. I’ll have to get another client or two, and refocus on my Terra Com business to ensure financial security. So, the question I pondered all the way up the hill is, “Do I want this bigger home with its lovely view and prime location, and a really big office for me and my books? Do I want all of this enough to give up some freedom and take on more mental and emotional pressure?” It seems this is a conundrum that keeps coming up for me, and I’m sure for many others. Is giving up a simple, non-material lifestyle worth it, in exchange for long term financial security?
On the return trip down the Butte it occurred to me that the dream of this house and this lifestyle is a very new dream for me. For decades my dream has been to live in a nice home at Aspen Ridge Ranch, writing, traveling, playing, and taking pictures. I’ve gotten close to fulfilling that longstanding dream on occasion but I’ve never quite made it all come true. I’ve never have enough money to build the perfect, rustic home on the ranch; the one I’ve envisioned and redesigned in my head and on paper for 30 years. I’ve been living in a 16×16 bare bones log cabin for nearly two decades. The Ranch has become less and less important to me during the past few years. I think this is because I finished with the pioneer chapter of my life, which I thoroughly enjoyed for 15 years, and now the remote land often feels like more of a burden than a joy. Sure, I’ve been writing more for the past 6 months but I expected to be a well paid best-selling author several times over by this time in my life. Sure, I’ve traveled to exotic lands but I didn’t get started until I was in my 30’s and I’ve had to take several sabbaticals away from the sojourning life to refill those financial coffers. I do have a good, loving relationship, and in that I can count my dream come true, but for me, that isn’t enough. I still want it all!
But, when you’re closing in on the half-way point of your life (I prefer this to the dreaded, “middle-age”) perhaps you have to be practical with your dreams. Is this an oxymoron? I’ll never give up dreaming big and outside the box, but with only so much time left I need to prioritize my dreams. I want to travel, expand my spirit, acquire more knowledge, and let my artist’s soul unfold like never before. But perhaps I have to give up some other things to fulfill these most important goals. Perhaps it is time to let go of the land in the Yamsi Valley. I haven’t wintered at the Ranch for three seasons now and, frankly, I can’t imagine ever doing it again. Not for the entire winter anyway and not without a snow plow, snow mobile, a new 4-wheel drive vehicle, and more solar power. For those of you who might be thinking I’m a wuss, hold your judgment until you’ve read my Wilderness Woman Journal (coming to this website soon). Trust me, I spent 15 winters living in a super remote, off-the-grid, tiny log cabin…by myself. I’ve been snowed in for weeks and even months at a time. No phone, no TV, no other human’s for miles around. I’ve done my time and whether I’m too out of shape for that sort of challenge or just bored with it, I don’t think it matters. I faced those adventures, grasped them with the pleasure, succeeded, and now I’m happy to be able to walk 2 blocks to the coffee kiosk, and wash my hair in hot running water whenever I feel like it.
So, what benefit or pleasure do I still get from the ranch? I love being there in the summer but I don’t like being beholden to it, which it demands. Perhaps it is time to start making the changes in my life that would lead to selling the ranch (when the market is better, say 2 or 3 years) and taking the oodles of dough I’d get from the sale to live in a nice home in Bend without any financial pressure. I’d have plenty of time to write and travel and read and play. I would still live in Oregon surrounded by the best outdoor playgrounds the world has to offer.
Near the end of my descent all these thoughts overwhelmed me and I concluded that it was okay to change my dreams if I wanted but somehow it made me feel sad, like I’d failed. Perhaps it isn’t good to hold on to the same dreams forever, being stubborn and impractical just because they were plans I’d made when I was 16 years old and they hadn’t ALL come true yet. With experiences and learning and achieving some dreams, perhaps my perspective has shifted. In fact I hope it has, and maybe it is time to create some new dreams. But I suspect I’ll also have to grieve for the ones I let go. Maybe I don’t need “it all” to be happy. Maybe I can be happy without the Ranch and with more time to travel, put my stories to paper, and have all the hot running water and bubble bath a girl could ever dream of.