Two days in...

Two full days into our new lives as Minnesootans (long 'O', of course), and it really doesn’t seem real. We rolled into the driveway after a long day- 26 hours- of packing, cleaning and driving. Departed Akron at 9pm, about four hours after what was called for in The Plan. Twelve and a half hours later, we unloaded the truck in an achy, bruised haze and sacked out on the floor of our new house around 10:30. After a short nap, we saw our first critters, two young deer prancing around beside our driveway as we made the first of many long trips to the store for provisions. And we need provisions, because our stuff isn’t arriving for a week.

Now it’s Wednesday night, and what we have here exactly hasn’t sunk in yet. We’re in a big, empty house with little furniture. We have two plates, two sets of silverware, zero furniture. We’re sleeping on the floor. In two days we’ve seen nine deer, four wild turkeys, one spotted rabbit, what may have been some sort of bobcat, a ton of squirrels, bats, dragonflies and hummingbirds, and eagles. Last night, while we were admiring a young buck from across the backyard, I peeked out the bedroom window to see a bigger buck like ten feet away, nibbling at the trees.

Such a long way we are from Akron.

Between the animals, the seclusion, the total lack of anything to do, the lack of basic…things, it really feels like a vacation. But this isn’t vacation. This is our home. This is where we live, these are the animals and trees and insects and spaces we live with. I can’t imagine being happier than I am right now, right here. Every window in the house is open, and there’s a breeze flowing in from the thunderstorm kicking up across the prairie. My Ipod is quietly droning the Drive-by Truckers. Airika is messing with the checkbook, the only real work either of us has done since we arrived. Tulip and Tilly are zonked on the floor, tired from two long days or sniffing every single blade of grass they can find. This is home. I find it hard to believe.

This feeling won’t last, of course. Our belongings will arrive in a week, bringing distractions like my really big television. Decisions that are so simple right now will be complicated, because, hey, there will be more than one pair of pants to choose from in the morning. Airika starts working next week. I start serious job-hunting tomorrow. They’re coming to hook up the internet later in the week. Soon, all this freedom will be gone.

But I’m holding on as long as I can.

8/26/08-8/27/08

Great White Notes:
Dispatches from Damn Near Canada
Volume 1

8/26
18:00

I will never leave this place.

I am sitting on a bench made from a simple knotty board laid over two stumps- the only thing that could even be considered furniture in my house here in the Minnesota woods- and I am watching the sun ease down behind the grass at the back of my very own prairie.

I will never leave this place. I will doze off here, long after the sun is gone, my very good coffee has disappeared. The dew will form on my skin late in the evening and will evaporate in the early afternoon. Deer will nibble my clothes, hummingbirds will buzz my ears. Jackrabbits will bounce across my boots. But I will not leave.

Because I’m pretty sure this is as good as it can get.