Appreciation

It is amazing how place can affect a person. I’d call our house a ranch, but with a craftsman-like interior. We hope to add to the aptness of that description as time goes on. But, to walk into our home, even though we are what might be called traditional Bohemian in design preference, is to feel the comfort of openness, wood, stone, ceramic.

The house wraps around you. Its layout is at once familiar and unexpected. And with its three open fireplaces, it welcomes visitors and family with open arms.

Okay, I’m getting too poetic here. It’s just that we feel lucky to have found this place. Lucky enough that working on it or with it doesn’t seem like the chore it could.

I remember apartment living, and how I would gaze at houses as we drove by them, windows lit and people moving about behind them. I was so jealous. And when we’d pass someone mowing their lawn on a twilit evening, I’d feel despair that we would ever know what that was like. Perhaps that is a reminder to us all to be patient; eventually things will happen.

By now in my life, I know that to be true. Equally so, I am aware that we never know how much time we have left. So I am still impatient for things to happen, to work out. I still get jealous when I see others already having what I think I want.

Then I stop and wonder how much it will take to make me appreciate what I have.

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rjm