Stretch your arms out as big as they will go
Dusthaven is less of a movement and more of a meditation
Image: a woman, her arms outstretched, standing in a flat, freshly plowed construction pad about 70’x60’ big. In the distance behind are the snowcapped White Mountains and two closer hillsides winging to her sides.
This post was originally shared on my Instagram: @charlottesails
Sometimes I meet friends in town and they ask how things are going on the build. There’s an expectant glow in their eye like we may already be hoisting walls or installing tile. I always feel a little bad when I try to explain just how slowly things move when you’re starting from the ground up, when you’re working on weekends, when there is no power, no water, when you’re building on your own.
Dusthaven is less of a movement and more of a meditation - of what we can do in the extra moments, to keep our hands and our minds thinking forward on the future. It’s driving two hours away from a hardware store and arriving to find you have only ¾ of the parts you need for the next tiny step forward. It’s knowing you won’t be able to make it to the hardware store and back to the land again for another week.
It’s being entirely okay with the glacial pace of your progress – because Dusthaven is also being in the moment too. It’s hikes and long talks with the kids, it’s burgers on the grill, it’s the dog rolling in the dirt, the sun setting westward into the mountains.
This morning Eric had me walk out into the middle of the newly finished pad for the carport. The carport is where we’ll perch the solar panels which will provide us power for everything we plan to do.
“Stretch your arms out as big as they will go,” he said. I would stretch my arms out to eternity for him.
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