We're back: week one update!

I’m excited about this blog post because I’m writing it from OUR NEW HOME! We landed a week ago and have been moving things around and organising them, weeding, mowing, raking, planting trees and flowers, hands continually dirty, plunging into country life, and falling asleep fulfilled and exhausted, thinking yes, yet another good day.

Spring has done its incredible work: it is gorgeous here and the valley is full of yellow, white and purple wildflowers, tall swaying grass, new buds and tree growth, and birds constantly chatter away as they migrate to Africa, which come to think of it, is just around the corner.

Here are some impressions of our first week back:

Our view from the camper waking up in the morning is priceless. As soon as we open the curtains, it’s like the whole forest falls into our camper. We now tell the time by watching where the sun hits. Once it reaches the little white chapel on the hill, it’s roughly 7:30, which means time for coffee and birdsong.

This week Dennis planted two trees we brought from Amsterdam. The first was a pine tree, grown from a seed found in Australia, and which stood on our roof for a decade. The second was a neglected curly willow, struggling in a big cooking pot, which Dennis rescued from the streets. Willows can easily grow up to 12 meters in height, so it will enjoy expanding into its new home.

We have no shower so are bathing in the river again, which is much deeper due to the spring rains. It’s fricking cold and challenging to enter (the cold feels like an instant tooth ache)—to be honest, I have only managed to dip in. But it’s still amazing. There’s something about swimming in cold natural water that’s hard to explain. Afterwards, your body buzzes and sings, alive and blissfully ecstatic, how I imagine cats feel when purring.

Dennis bought a strimmer to cut the grass, which is almost waist high. As it disappears, the shape of the field and the terraces slowly reveals itself and we can see which plants, flowers and trees we planted last summer have survived (there are many). Our lemon, lime and grapefruit tree are doing well, and we just planted potatoes, leftovers from a 10-kilo sack we bought last year, which sprouted in the basement into a tangle of long purple tendrils seeking the light.

The terrace connecting our houses looks great, only there’s a streetlamp across from it that has suddenly started working, flooding the field with light. Last year our valley was so dark, wild boar roamed our fields nightly and we fell asleep to their foraging. They’ve disappeared now. We want the lights turned off--something for the city council-- because it dilutes the beauty of the night sky.

Finally, we met our neighbours, who moved in a week after we left for Holland last October. They are two 30-ish couples (one Israeli-Dutch, the other both Israeli) with 3-4 volunteers, so it’s like having a kibbutz next door. They are warm, energetic, and positive people who have spent the last 7 months building on their property. Considering how many of them are living there, we are happy we rarely hear them—they are mostly tucked away around the corner.

It’s great seeing their progress because I know we will be able to boast the same half a year from now, though we have very different projects. They are interested in feeding people’s stomachs, creating a self-sufficient community that can thrive in difficult times. We are much more interested in feeding people’s hearts and minds, creating a place to retreat and revive.

We are thrilled to be back. Living here allows us to approach life more creatively and artistically, creating our own path. It makes me think of Joseph Campbell’s quote (let me paraphrase): if you can see the path ahead, get off it—it’s not yours. It’s about straying off the beaten path to carve your own, making your way through the bushes.

Now that we are back, we are taking the first steps on that path. It is one with no given rules, largely silent and contemplative, and a path overgrown with the foliage of not knowing—like not knowing how difficult or easy things will come together with our house, not knowing how to speak Portuguese, not knowing how my relationship with my neighbours will develop, not knowing what vegetables will grow in my garden, and those thousand other details about home ownership that I am ignorant of.

This path requires action, though it might often look like inaction, because it demands observation before each new step. On this path there is no sense of time because it’s not clear when you’re taking a break and considering a new turn—for good paths have many twists, turns— or when the path is actually finished.

And yet this path is thick with DISCOVERY. It is giving us permission to be children again: spontaneous, amateur, getting to fumble around, trip over things and laugh as we get up again. It's messy, dusty, thorny at times, and filled with annoying flies that buzz as they bite at our feet. Each step is earned and conquered. As we inch forward, we clear the way, uncovering the new—and that’s when the magic of the path reveals itself.

So, as I walk on this path now, I feel great excitement about remembering my childlike self, that natural rebel who is curious, unattached to outcomes, and eager to experience. My child self is naturally geared towards growing and blossoming, searching for authenticity and content with all the small steps. She will have to contend with that older adult self, though, the one who always falls short on personal accomplishments, whose hair is never quite right, and who frequently craves attention.

But she will eventually grab my child self’s hands and they will carve this path together because they need each other.