Life Updates!

While living my best van-life since leaving Florida one month ago, I have sorted through my priorities and made a clear choice to invest energy in helping my son and his wife (with baby on the way!) with their newly-acquired 10-acre homestead in southeast Michigan. Currently I am living here on their land in my van, with my sweet older dog, thoroughly enjoying the spacious country views, the quiet beauty, the simplicity of tiny-house living, and the natural daily intersections with my son and daughter-in-law. They are renovating their old farmhouse themselves, while staying on the land with no kitchen or bathroom…so we are all in camp-mode together and it’s fun! Right now we are also preparing for a belated wedding reception and ceremonious land-blessing here, with family and friends in a couple of weeks.

We dream of the possibility of me living more long-term on the land with them in some still unknown configuration, yet we realize this idea needs to percolate and be researched and developed over the course of time, after their critical initial renovations are complete and they adjust to being new parents. For now, I was able to find a cute little house for sale a few miles down the gorgeous country roads, right in the heart of the quaint village of Manchester, Michigan (my ‘granny-flat!’). I plan to close on it soon, and move in by late July (I will send pictures when it’s all finalized). In the meantime, I will savor every day of another month on the land in my van-home.

Holding all things lightly, in a grounded yet unattached way, has allowed the blessings to flow easily and quickly, and I am filled with gratitude! The little village house has only a tiny patch of land with it, enough for some fun plantings yet minimal yard-work. I intend to focus my food-growing interests and energies on my son’s big country property, with several people to help with the work…it will be like our own little family co-op. My self-sufficient tiny van-home will give me the freedom to stay whenever and for however long I wish.

The way I see it, I will have the best of village-life, access to nearby country-life with some of my grandchildren, and a tiny-home on wheels for visiting my other children & grandchildren, as well as for my winter migrations to Florida. This makes me smile from deep inside! It’s my creative response to the current challenges of melding the different pieces of the puzzle of my ever-shifting life.

Anchoring me through all of these recent decisions and changes is my deepening trust and faith in my safe place within the greater pattern of Life. The more lightly I hold my attachments, the easier things become. This is one of the biggest ‘secrets’ I have discovered for myself. In the past, I have been so afraid that if I did not hold tightly enough to what I loved, or push hard enough for what I believed needed to happen, things would fall apart and I would lose what mattered. But what I have actually found to be true is pretty much the opposite! This has felt like a huge relief, freeing me from the heavy burdens of over-efforting, over-thinking, and clinging (to ideas, beliefs, outcomes, or people).

I hope you will enjoy and benefit from this simple personal life-update this week, as I have been busy negotiating the purchase of a home - in a context of stiff competition since it is a rare gem in the historic village center. I expect it to go through for me, and to be able to report that success to you next week! And if for some reason that doesn’t happen, I have no doubt another wonderful option will open up. That’s the way life works, when we will let it flow without our clinging or resistance :).