Wealthy In Loss: the hazy cameraphone dispatch

I feel lost, immersed in loss, wealthy in loss--it's a good thing.

All my worldy possessions (read books, clothes, art, toys, dishes) are in my only practical worldy possession: my car, which is parked in a musician's driveway (so they may as well be in flames). I feel light. I was sitting in my window seat, in my cottage, thinking about whether I would have been hit this hard if I hadn't gotten rid of all my things and flown the coop.

My cottage is called Willow. It has a blue dutch door and when you look out the window you see green green everywhere.

When you walk down the gravelly paths and look up at the trees, you are dwarfed by their splendor.
The island is full of noises indeed. Birds singsong all day long. After you eat dinner, you get a basket and fill it up with snack supplies for the next day, and a pre-made lunch. Then you can go into the garden, which is full of herbs and flowers, and cut some for yourself. When your done your basket is quite beautiful.


I feel like Gretel when I skip home with it in my arms.

I love walking around in the gravelly loop, and I love walking off the path over rocks and into leafy hidden places. I am not a person easily comfortable when lost. I have learned the past few months to feel more than comfortable with losing things, but that's different; when you throw something out, when you leave something behind, when your last pair of socks vanishes god knows where, you still know where you are. My son will one day write a memoir about the trauma he has experienced in my car, as on numerous occasions I drove frantically and tried to find the address of whatever place we were heading to. I hate being lost. But I am learning to like it, to like it quite a bit. I read that Man of the Wild Daniel Boone once said to his portrait painter, "I have never been lost in the woods my entire life... but I was bewildered once for three days." I am learning to be bewildered and to like it. And I am learning to totally lose myself.

When I was on the ferry, I noticed something interesting: I loved putting my face to the wind and watching as the island approached, slowly, but then, when I looked back at the shore I was leaving behind, I felt utter exhilaration. There’s nothing quite like the act of leaving…even if I have absolutely no attachment to the shore I leave behind. It's such a familiar feeling.
That said: I love it here—the place I left to. I never want to leave.
To stay forever, I could eat one of these flowers…I was told during my orientation that they give you a heart attack. But I won’t.