Tiny Houses

It's P and L's fault that I'm entranced with tinyhouses. Early this spring, P and L visited my house and we made dinner, walked through the orchards, watched the sunset, and pored over countless blogs of tiny houses. How easily was I swayed! Originally, I thought a nice tinyhouse on the cliffs of scotland, but realized how unlikely that dream might be.

I was born and raised in the country, so woods, mountains, streams, and gardens speak more of home to me than buildings and clustered community. I love community, I love fellowship, I love people and all my fantastic friends. I also love natural beauty and its serenity. I do not for an instant believe I must suffer a solitude of nature, but if nature experience is solitary, I suffer it gladly.
Tinyhouses always seemed ideal. I don't own many things. My "bed" is a mattress on the floor. I have three bookcases (four sorta), a desk, clothes, blankets, a guitar, and my work computer things. What else? I have some knick-knacks of course, artwork, gifts, and items valuable to me, but I can easily store everything in such a house. Only two best friends remain, and both will, likely, be married by next summer.

Now, instead of writing, I've spent about half an hour looking at tinyhouse blogs. My favorites are the ones like log cabins. Subsistence farming from a tiny house? Sounds like I'm turning into a Wendell Berry.

What We Need Is Here

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.
Wendell Berry

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry