I’ve had a conversations with someone who has a similar desire as I do, to live away from the insanity of the city and pressures of a career dominated life. Traffic, other people, things everyone wants done yesterday and having to fix other people’s problems that contaminate your own life, be it work or home seem never ending.
His is to live by the ocean that is slightly populated. Mine is to live by a lake or at least deep into the woods in similar fashion. This has been pulling at me since I was ten years old.
I was reminded of this last night when I watched a movie called Black Robe. It’s about a Jesuit priest trying to form a mission among the Hurons in Quebec back in the 1600’s. There were appealing shots of canoes paddled along high cliffs and scenes of deep woods. Above all of this, everything was hushed. Saguenay Quebec seems wonderful!
It’s funny how movies, with me at least, can invoke that feeling of peace. I’ve had this feeling with several other movies showing similar landscapes. Never Cry Wolf showed the Alaskan tundra, Jeremiah Johnson displays the Grand Tetons and The Last of the Mohicans opens up with a fog covered Shenandoah Valley. My just looking at a film of it can make me contented.
Have I actually experienced it? Sure. Don’t think I just live vicariously via movies. One time a ways back I was on an escarpment of Mt St Helen’s mountain. It was the south side, the side that wasn’t blown to little bits and still had a forest. It was a late July afternoon and I sat down among this field of alpine-like flowers and grass and looked south along the Cascades. The only noise I heard was the wind. After about an hour I had forgotten about many things in my life. My job, the need to drive back to Portland later or the worry of getting to the airport to drop off the rental and bolt to the concourse to pre-board. These things slipped away, for a while at least. If I had a blood pressure cuff I can bet my BP had dropped to slightly below normal then.
Dreams are free, that’s what is great about them. But they remain just that, dreams. They have as much consequence as the thin air. But, and thanks to my Dad for this piece of advice, if you want to create something in your life, plan it. Break it down to manageable pieces and work towards it. Realize you’ll be hampered by obstacles and the like but always focus on that goal. Eventually you can realize it.
