Our stationary waterfront home was so joyful with all of the animals, and a constant show of changes in the beautiful stream. Peaceful, calm clear-water summer days with all the ducklings and other animals growing bigger every day. Watching the reflections of autumn leaves along with beaver and squirrel busily preparing for colder times, soothed us into winter. Autumn rains make the creek come alive when the water becomes FAST and muddy with each rain exhale bringing the creek out of it’s normal banks followed by a great inhale as the rain stops and the waters recede to their normal level. Over and over as each storm awakens and breathes. Winter brings silence and a particular type of beauty that can only be experienced where water and stream banks meet, and the water freezes. The ducks parade single-file down the middle of the frozen water, the sun reflects off the frozen water and highlights the seed pods left behind from a summer that seems so long ago! Spring brings new, gentle rains and the stream breathes more calmly now and the water remains in it’s normal range. New leaves sprout bringing the animals to start their nesting and foraging into a joyful circus of activity. The ducks enjoy showing off their beautiful families. Joyful glorious spring.
Dec 7, 2015: The universe helped us begin our downsizing adventure! The purging process began when autumn rains brought flooding everywhere in our city of Portland Oregon (on my mom’s birthday by the way). Water came into the finished daylight basement! The cleanup was quite involved; getting the water out, removing the carpet, cutting the drywall out above the level that water wicked into the drywall, cleaning silty floors left behind by creek water. The Put-back took a little over 3 months because we had to keep up with work obligations in the meantime. It was like a huge remodel with the only benefit of bringing the basement back to it’s original state! There were items that couldn’t rebound from being in water this time so they had to be dumped. The rest of the items ended up in the garage (where the cars belong) and stuffed in our daughter’s old room. The end result was a shiny clean, fully repainted 1900 sq foot basement with only a few furniture items. All the stuff was on the main floor, in our way, forcing us to review and make decisions. Keep, donate, gift, toss. Oh, one more decision: “I don’t want to deal with deciding right now” items that went into a new pile.
