In the words of Kathleen Norris, “it is the aim of contemplative living. . . that you learn to recognize a blessing when you see one.” Sometimes I find it hard to live here, where my politics and perspective are so different from most of the people I’m around. The rest of the time, it’s a blessing to me to live in the country and be able to see the sun rise and set, to have a place to go away from the world at the end of the day.
It will be a good exercise for me to come here to this place in Towanda (our online town) to practice counting my blessings, to remember why I am where I am. I’ll start with words from Norris, who was writing about living in Lemmon, South Dakota, where one of our dearest Towanda friends also lives.
I must live here because of the quiet. On my dawn walk last Saturday the world was so still that I began to wonder if the nearly full moon, still high in the western sky, was about to speak.
And more from Norris:
I live here because, after being out in what is purported to be “the real world,” . . . . this is a good place to cool off. . . This is my real world, where life proceeds at its own healthy pace, where I can revel in the luxury of paying more attention to sunrise and sunset than to clock time.