Her Name? Fair Haven!

I live in two homes both of which are home.  One is the home of my life, the home we have lived in for years, the home our children grew up in.  It is the place I have lived longer than any other place.  It is settled, put in order, made comfortable, it is a homestead.  It’s walls, outbuildings, studio and land have all been worn to comfortably fit and serve us.  The other is our future home, it is just being laid out, its lands and edges still wild with growth and mystery.  It is untamed, mostly unknown, its ridges and knolls are untended and its river border will never be, spilling its banks, often white-capped, and always having its way.  Our home is mostly a fortress, solid concrete dug into the earth, a solid glass front facing the river but also opening to all that the southwest can bear upon us.  The old trees we cleared around still can’t seem to open fully to their new found freedom and the grasses can’t yet outgrow the weeds.  But we are making progress, planting new trees that will always know vastness, sowing grasses that are strong enough to grab and hold on.  An orchard produced its first fruit this past summer but enough to give hope for future abundance.  We are forcefully pushing back on the wilderness so we can live together, each serving the other, a peace always made with hard work.  And our homestead is being planned, a wider footprint, more windows, more framed view, lots of hot water to soak weary old bodies in after a day of hard taming.  A new home, a homestead, a work of sculpture we are in the process of making.  Our only home, our final living place, our final resting place.  We have named her, Fair Haven.  Of all things—she is that!