There is a moment, pegging washing to the line, when the wind arrives before you are finished.
It came this morning, moving down off the Swartberg the way it does, and the sheets filled like sails before the last peg was on.
And I stood there in the middle of all that white billowing, laughing, wrestling cotton in the sunshine, and I thought to myself : there are women paying good money for retreats to feel what I am feeling right now, for free, this morning, in my own backyard.
The Karoo has been teaching me about enough.
I came here from a fuller life, if we are measuring by the things that fill. More shops. More noise. More lanes on the road and more items on the list. And slowly, so slowly I have hardly noticed it happening, this place of my heart , the one I dreamed of and named Dream Karoo, has been emptying my hands and filling my heart, one slow morning at a time.
The daisies on the kitchen table, picked from the veldt on my walk, in an old jar. They cost me nothing. They are worth the whole morning.
The washing on the line, drying in wind and sunlight the way washing has dried for a thousand years.
There is a smell that sheets bring in from a Karoo line that no bottle has ever managed to capture. Lance says he sleeps differently on line-dried sheets filled with Karoo sunshine. I also think he sleeps differently because we live differently now.
The Stoep, with its two chairs and its one view. The mountains do something new with the light every single evening, and they have never once repeated themselves.
We sit there with our coffee, the longdogs at our feet, Molly Joy mending slowly on her soft bed, Daisy Moon keeping her gentle watch, and we watch the show. Best seats in the house. The house we already live in.
And the path. Oh, the path. It leaves from just beyond the gate and wanders off toward the mountains, and it has taught me more than most books on my shelf.
Walk it slowly and it gives you everything. Veldt flowers. Bird calls. The Karoo silence that lives out here, which is less an absence of sound and more a presence of something else.
Here is what I am learning, dear one, and the veldt keeps underlining it: contentment never waits inside more. It lives inside enough.
And enough, it turns out, is a practice. A choosing. A daily walking out to the line, the veldt, the chairs, the path, and saying quietly: this. This is the wealth.
The sheets are in off the line now, folded and smelling of wind and sunshine . The mountains are turning that gorgeous purple they do, when the sun shines. And my heart, my whole heart, is full on almost nothing at all.
May you find your own washing line moment this week. The sunshine is closer than you think.
SharynAnn
There is a moment, pegging washing to the line, when the wind arrives before you are finished.
It came this morning, moving down off the Swartberg the way it does, and the sheets filled like sails before the last peg was on.
And I stood there in the middle of all that white billowing, laughing, wrestling cotton in the sunshine, and I thought to myself : there are women paying good money for retreats to feel what I am feeling right now, for free, this morning, in my own backyard.
The Karoo has been teaching me about enough.
I came here from a fuller life, if we are measuring by the things that fill. More shops. More noise. More lanes on the road and more items on the list. And slowly, so slowly I have hardly noticed it happening, this place of my heart , the one I dreamed of and named Dream Karoo, has been emptying my hands and filling my heart, one slow morning at a time.
The daisies on the kitchen table, picked from the veldt on my walk, in an old jar. They cost me nothing. They are worth the whole morning.
The washing on the line, drying in wind and sunlight the way washing has dried for a thousand years.
There is a smell that sheets bring in from a Karoo line that no bottle has ever managed to capture. Lance says he sleeps differently on line-dried sheets filled with Karoo sunshine. I also think he sleeps differently because we live differently now.
The Stoep, with its two chairs and its one view. The mountains do something new with the light every single evening, and they have never once repeated themselves.
We sit there with our coffee, the longdogs at our feet, Molly Joy mending slowly on her soft bed, Daisy Moon keeping her gentle watch, and we watch the show. Best seats in the house. The house we already live in.
And the path. Oh, the path. It leaves from just beyond the gate and wanders off toward the mountains, and it has taught me more than most books on my shelf.
Walk it slowly and it gives you everything. Veldt flowers. Bird calls. The Karoo silence that lives out here, which is less an absence of sound and more a presence of something else.
Here is what I am learning, dear one, and the veldt keeps underlining it: contentment never waits inside more. It lives inside enough.
And enough, it turns out, is a practice. A choosing. A daily walking out to the line, the veldt, the chairs, the path, and saying quietly: this. This is the wealth.
The sheets are in off the line now, folded and smelling of wind and sunshine . The mountains are turning that gorgeous purple they do, when the sun shines. And my heart, my whole heart, is full on almost nothing at all.
May you find your own washing line moment this week. The sunshine is closer than you think.
SharynAnn
