valley living
Ever since our good friends, Jonah and Michelle, told us they were moving back up to Calvin Crest, I’ve been wistfully remembering our mountain days. I miss things like having “real” seasons, walking through the clean snow just before sunrise, listening to the coyotes at bedtime and taking long walks through the forest. There is just something so special about quiet mountain living. I first moved to the Sierras to escape a home-life that was destroying my body with anxiety and depression. While there I read the Brother’s Karamozov for the first time, drank lots of tea, had many wonderful conversations and decided to get married. Our time in Big Bear Lake was about learning how to be happy, how to be a family, and how to survive on ramen noodles. I think often about all the hours spent absentmindedly gazing over a field of wildflowers or the lake with a big mug of tea.
And then today, teaching a class of preschoolers on a Saturday morning, I catch sight of myself. Mug in hand (green tea, of course), leaning back on the counter watching tulle-clad four-year olds attempt “the silliest dance ever.”
This isn’t mountain living, but it ain’t bad living either.
