This week’s Welcome to My World challenge is to Give one word that best describes where you live.
E d e n:
Rolling hills, grand oaks, and wide open space filled my heart beyond its capacity. The depth of God’s exquisite taste to create beauty, peace, and bounty lay before us. I thought it to be a bit like the Garden of Eden.
My husband and I viewed the country real estate beneath a deep blue sky and a bright winter sun. We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to purchase the land. A few months later we moved onto the property where we’ve lived for nearly thirty years.
In the evenings, the stars and a moon are visible. Coyotes and owls call out mysterious legends. On rare occasions deer pass through. A distant moo reminds me of my grandparents’ dairy and the song, Home on the Range, I learned to sing as a child.
Written by Kansas homesteader Dr. Brewster Higley in the 1800s first as a poem, its original title was My Western Home. The verses which you can read here—reveal Higley’s deep affection for nature and where he lived.
In my memoir’s WIP (work in progress) I express this same love for my country home.
But you don’t have to be a country dweller or live on a range to be content. You just need to love home.
You just need to love home.
Tweet
Since the pandemic, people, worldwide, have spent a lot of time at home. We’ve learned much about our spaces, our family members, ourselves, and time. How we spend it homeschooling, exercising, ordering necessities on line, Zooming with co-workers, doctors, elderly parents, and grandchildren.
We’ve had to be creative, seek support, take a deep breath and pray for a miracle to help us get through these strained and trying days.
Psalms 91:1-2 (ASV) reassures us that, “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of Jehovah, He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in whom I trust.”
He is my refuge and my fortress.
Tweet
I’ve said these words many times to the Lord. Only then can I block out pandemic depression, cabin fever, loneness from lack of human contact, or fear of COVID attacking my family and friends.
There are so many reasons to feel anger, hopeless, or out of control even when there isn’t a pandemic.
I’ve lived in a 10×50-foot mobile home in an almond orchard, a triplex with a yard half the length and just as narrow as a bowling lane, a three-room rental infested with mice, and a fifth-wheel camper.
There are also reasons to resist feelings of anger, hopelessness, and lack of control.
There are also reasons to resist feelings of anger, hopelessness, and lack of control.
Tweet
The mobile home where I lived had plenty of shade on hot summer days. I got acquainted and chatted with a neighbor my age over the fence in our tiny triplex yard. The infested rental had a working kitchen, shower, and a kitchen-living space large enough to gather with friends. The fifth-wheel provided shelter while my husband built our house among the rolling hills.
This is where we experienced our first encounter with a serpent. But unlike Adam, my husband protected me and our young sons. Who says we can’t learn from the Bible?
Who says we can’t learn from the Bible?
Tweet
There have been, and continue to be, deep satisfaction and contentment where I live among rolling hills, grand oaks, and wide open space. After all, in my mind, it’s a bit like the Garden of Eden.
What word or phrase describes where you live?
How do you overcome negative symptoms of the pandemic?
Dianne Marie Andre 
I love that you can live in Eden now! It must have been hard living in those small mobile homes. I have been living in a room in my son’s house for the past four years, and yes, you do get cabin fever, especially in winter and with the pandemic! But praise God, he still is God of the prairies, and my brother has a place where the ‘buffalo roam’ in Wyoming, so I get to visit occasionally pre-pandemic
!
Deryn, I’d love to see Wyoming. Hopefully, this coming winter we’ll all be able to get out. Thanks for sharing.
I do love your writing, especially when you talk about your home and gardens. Please get a move on with that WIP! Impatient souls are waiting for the next chapter!
In answer to your first (and I guess second) question. I live in a retirement village (NOT an old-age home). A few months into the pandemic, the CEO of our village and some 13 others, encouraged us to all get out of doors and stand in our doorways waving to our neighbouts. Just to have human interaction. We went one further, and our block met together, well-spaced and wearing masks, at 10 sharp every day. There we shared our ups and downs and questions. It was a great way to get to know our neighbours as well as overcoming the loneliness of the stay-at-home orders.
When we had stunning weather, which we often do, a favourite expression developed: Another lovely day in Paradise!
Now we no longer meet, but often when we pass one of those neighbours on a glorious autumn day, one of us will call out that same phrase! So in answer to your first question: Paradise!
Shirley, if we stood in our doorway the only interaction we’d experience is with the heifers or chickens!
LOL! Yes, well at least they move! My wall doesn’t. If we stand in our doorway we face an immovable wall!!