I woke up early this morning and watched the sun come up. Brett has been out of town with his grandmother this week so I dropped Boo off at school and came home and took a cat nap. I watched Sense and Sensibility. And read a magazine. Then I watched a documentary about people that live in Siberia.*
Later I made some tea, sat on the step of the screen porch. The acorns were falling on the tin roof of the cottage. I watched Diesel walk around the stepping stones. So much to learn from a dog…he is so easily pleased. His short time outdoors is always unhurried and full of curiosity. I love how he sniffs the air and closes his eyes against the sun. I copied him.
It felt good, until there was that anxiousness and the voice in my head: you should be accomplishing something. That voice that has been there all my life: you should be…. you should be…. This feeling still rears its ugly head on occasion and sometimes a brief panic sets in saying: Your husband left his job. You closed a successful business. Where will you go from here? By the world’s standards of success I should have stayed on the course I was on. It’s hard to explain this new life to people without getting the third degree.
The highlights of my week last week were:
Sweeping the sidewalk at the used bookstore. Dusting and straightening the bookshelves.
Catching up with the cooks at the inn.
Learning the old man’s name that I pass in the park each week.
Buying a venus fly trap and fresh salsa from the farmer’s market.
Sitting by the river and writing it all down.
Such simple things. But yet…every once in a while I get sidetracked with new ideas, things that I think will impress the world. Business. Venture. Make the world happy. Those things are not really what I want to be doing. I know myself….and I would work myself into a shriveled shell of a me if I pursued those new ideas. And that’s when I pray really hard for God to thin my world out again, to take away what he doesn’t want for me…and to leave breadcrumbs going forward.
When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it. –The Alchemist
The magazine I picked up today had an interview with Paulo Coehlo in it. Breadcrumb.
I do believe that we know our reason to be here. We don’t know if we are taking the exact right steps toward it. But if you are honest enough, God will guide you. Even if you take some wrong steps along the way, God will recognize that you have a pure heart and put you back on track. -Paulo Coehlo, O Magazine, Oct 2014
I remember when I first picked up a copy of the Alchemist years ago…at a yard sale. I didn’t read it right away. Quick overview if you haven’t read it: A boy sells his flock to pursue a dream.
A recent conversation:
Person: What do you do?
Me: Well….mostly….I write.
Person: My friend is a writer. She’s published like 10 books. Have you written anything I would know?
Me: Probably not.
Person: And you are writing a book?
Me: I think so.
Person: How far along are you?
Me: Depends on the day.
Person: What is it about?
Me: It’s a memoir.
Person: You are too young to write a memoir.
Quick aside: My friend Donno is opening up a tattoo parlor in downtown Bryson City this month. It’s part art gallery…for outsider art. Outsider art: a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture; Dubuffet focused particularly on art by those on the outside of the established art scene, such as insane-asylum inmates and children. –wikipedia
Quick epiphany (and breadcrumb): I am an outsider writer!
Person: Too young…to write a memoir.
Me: Then I guess I’m writing an episode.
Person: How long have you been writing it?
Me: My whole life?
Memoir. Non-fiction. Episode. True story. What does it matter? The dream is: to write. But it’s more than just writing. To write things down so I can make sense of it all. To be truly interested in the world around me. To tell a story. And maybe someday it will be meaningful to someone else. That’s what the breadcrumbs lead me to. And they guide me away from things I thought might be opportunities, allowing me to say no without fear or regret.
Sitting here today I looked out the window at the mountains. They are like sleeping giants to me, some lying on the side and curled up. Others are laying on their backs so you can see their distinct profiles. Sleeping giants covered with a blanket of trees and brush, and I see elbows and knees and foreheads and noses. Nobby clavicles and shoulder blades poke through a thick blanket millions of years in the making. Growth, decay, and growth. The mountains are living and breathing but barely stirring, in a state of hibernation, and they laugh at us with our tiny concerns. They laugh at me when I think my 37 years of life has been hard or easy or nothing or something.
Mountain: An episode? Ha ha ha ha. That’s 100,000 years.
Me: Exactly.
Mountain: Listen.
Me: To what?
Mountain: Your heart.
Me: You are a talking mountain.
Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity. -The Alchemist
I listen. I have to train myself to listen. And tune everything else out. Like the boy I sold my “flock” too. I know what my assignment is: To wander. And read. And write. And create. Lather, lather, rinse, repeat. The more I do this, the less I think about what might have been or should have been. I find my own voice. I let myself watch movies and read and just sit in solitude for a while. I meet new people and actually hold conversations with them. These things are not lucrative…they will not put me on the cover of Fast Company or get me promoted….but they are food for my soul. I cannot have it all, but I don’t want it all. This is the ultimate promotion.
And not everyone will understand. The questions are endless. Health insurance? Life insurance? Insurance? How will you make a living? What is a living? These are all the rules. I’ve been reading Intimations of Mortality by Violet Weingarten….a journal she wrote during her battle with cancer. My copy is old and obviously from a library with the clear plastic cover and dewey decimal code: 616.994:
I live in a world, my world, with people who haven’t even glimpsed the door, however close they may be to me. Remember you have to see it with your own eyes. Borrowing someone else’s glasses won’t do it. So even if I wanted to change my life, the people I care about aren’t going to change theirs. If I want to toss it all away and scuba-dive off the Great Barrier Reef, I’d have to do it on my own, and that I don’t want to do. Because I know that the step from the iceberg leads back to an ice floe, and on that floe I’ll float, like everyone else, sometimes alone, sometimes along-side, sometimes making small talk, sometimes holding hands, sometimes sad, sometimes happy, always at the whim of the current. Human. Wherever I may be.
Always at the whim of the current. An outsider.
For some reason that just made me think of the movie Rumble Fish.
I’m too tired to even read through this post again.
I just ate half a bag of Muddy Buddies.
Really all I wanted to say was: today was a good day.
I wish good days for you too.
And don’t disturb the mountains. They are all resting.
*Happy People, A Year in the Taiga (* <—— virtual breadcrumb)
What a joy to take the time to listen, and just be.
Take that nap, feel the sun, watch TV.. read, and most of all write.
So we can all share in your dream.
And your soulful life.
Those mountains sound like magic.
You’re such a wonderful human. I feel blessed I get to read your words. If you are too young to write a memoir, well, maybe I am too. Ha. Although I doubt it for both of us. We’ve already lived many lifetimes in our 37 and 31 years. xoxo.
I think you have balls of steel for doing what you are doing. I wonder when i will have the courage to simplify instead of squirreling and trying to ‘build up my stores’. I think ‘Ashley had a near death experience and she has already been successful so she can do this’. While I feel I have to get to a certain level of success before I could justify living the way I think I really want. Like a green card or stamp that says ‘successful member of society’ .
Also I have read to Alchemist 5+ times, love that book.
Anne Lamott ” ElL. Doctorow said one that ‘Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.’ You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything. you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life I have ever heard.”
I hope your going to write about the ghost soon.
A – What a heartfelt, authentic post. Thank you for sharing what’s on your mind. It made me think of the Hackschool TED talk I recently watched from a 13-year old. I love the line he says about “we are raised to make a living, not make a life.” Besides being an outsider writer, I think you could be a hack writer, too. See what you think. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h11u3vtcpaY
All the best,
Jen
I love this glimpse into your simple lifestyle. Getting lost in the being, and not the doing….that’s what life should be about.
You made my day Ashly 🙂
Aloha,first time to talk to you!
I’ m so happy to could know you.
Just I wanted to say Mahalo;)
Oh yes! Mountain is listing really good .
Respect them 😉
Have a blessed day….
Just as He has left breadcrumbs for you, you are also a breadcrumb for others – that He has also lead us to you. 🙂
Good luck on your journey – let me know how you overcome that pesky inside voice that hates rest and simple pleasures (for an extended amount of time). I struggle with that daily… your posts are reminders to me, to just be.
Oh The Outsiders! Pony Boy! Loooove that book and movie! I just absolutely admire how you have followed your heart. God is good. All the time. No matter what. Praying His blessings on you and Brett and Boo. Love following your journey. You are definitely a writer and can’t wait to read your book(s!)
BRAVO! ” By the world’s standards of success I should have stayed on the course I was on.” Oh my—such true words and your description of sweeping the book store….it made me think of life two generations ago…our great grandmothers….sweeping off the porch, making homemade meals, caring for the children….. That may not have seemed like “having it all” but the peace they must have felt. I wonder what they would think to glimpse the rat race of today. Storing up our treasures in the form of devices held in our palms or on our laps. You are looking into faces! Learning names! THAT is a treasure!! Pleeease write a book! Your wisdom is timeless!
love you!
Your writing always moves me, Ashley. Thank you for sharing! I look forward to reading your blog and always find myself saying to my husband, “hey–listen to this” as I read select passages aloud. The other day I went back and read your testimony and it brought tears to my eyes (in a good way), as I realized that God has worked through you to teach me certain lessons.
Giiiiiirl…do I hear you!?!? The endless questions, the third degree! Yes! I so feel you on on that, but I promise you in time you’ll stop caring and just nod and smile. Some people will totally get you (like me), others will try, and some will think you are crazy. Such is life, we can’t please them all – and why should we – it’s your life to be lived your way. After I read your post I just went outside to my outdoor shower to cool off (I don’t have an indoor shower or AC in my 420 sq ft cabin) – because it’s still 95 degrees here in the desert (29 Palms) at almost 9pm at night and I stared up at the huge desert sky and all the stars and thought to myself that there is absolutely no where else I want to be. I thought of you too – staring at the big huge sky you have been writing about recently and it made me smile. Sometimes I lay on my deck and stare at the sky and feel like I’m swimming under the bluest ocean or at night I marvel at the wisps of the Milky Way that I can see with my naked eye. Such beauty from nature – it can’t be explained when people ask…so what do you do? what about___(fill in the blank)___? why??? We all must find our own peace…and it seems like you are finding yours…and I LOVE reading about it! Cheers! 🙂
A rest period de for you and spiritual reflection. If the happiness exists he is maybe ther.
Thank you, Ashley, for my breadcrumb of encouragement this morning!
So good… thanks for the thoughts. I have been following your journey with curiosity. We see an opportunity for big life change on the horizon and are praying for direction as well. What’s most important? to which good thing are we being called? It’s definitely not increased income or prestige, or more activities. And as we wait and pray, there’s peace in the waiting, which I think means we’re actually called to wait right now, so we’re right where we need/want/ought to be.
yes yes yes and yes! oh and YES!! I cannot think of anything else to say. If you sat down and told me this face to face, I would have just nodded and said yes, like when someone is praying in the group and they are just on point and you don’t have anything to add other than your agreement. Yes!
YOU ARE A WRITER…we all are – writing our memoir with each and every moment that we experience. Your posts are an inspiration and a joy to read. You need no excuses for the choices you have made for yourself and your family. Be proud that you had the courage to do something that many of us would love to do. As I unpack and move my things into this new smaller house that I am in LOVE with, my husband struggles with what people who know us will think…why did we move backwards in life when our former home was so much bigger, and newer and lovely…little do they know that that home while big and lovely kept us too separated…this little home brings us together and while it’s not everyone’s cup of tea…I LOVE IT!! Rock on – nap – read and LIVE…it is what you were meant to do!!
I love this & I love laying in the field watching my horses & dogs as they rolls, take in the air, the glass they are laying in, as They come and put their heads on mine as if they are taking to me. My mountains. I love them, not to mention the trees, some trees just seem to have a spr it all it’s own. Awesome story. Glad I read it.. Thank you for sharing your story. Have a great day as well, Lillll
I loved reading this. Little things are happening in my life right now that I think God is trying to tell me to slow down. Take it all in….Its so inspiring reading your words. Its so hard in this day and age to stop listening to that little voice in our heads. Stop running this “rat race” we call life. You are doing just that…following your soul. Thank you for sharing your story….it gives me hope!