Rejuvenate

“There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the genuine sound in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever need.”   Howard Thurman

I am reading, once again, Gift from the Sea, the intimate reflections of Anne Morrow Lindbergh written while on a vacation of solitude and contentment by the sea. Taking time away from her husband, Charles Lindbergh, and her five children. It was a restorative time for her as a writer, a woman, a mother, and a wife. Being close to the sea, she found a space for contemplation and creativity within her busy life and put into words the importance of finding that “state of grace” within them. In the book, she says, “By grace, I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony.” In other words, we are either in balance or out of balance. And like a trapeze artist walking a tightrope, we must find the inner core that keeps us and our lives in harmony. Anne Morrow Lindbergh found her rejuvenation while alone at the seaside. 

Santa Ynez Valley

In California, I always found my rejuvenation in the Santa Ynez Valley, north of Los Angeles. The drive from Topanga Canyon along the Pacific Ocean brought a lightness along with the view. Through Malibu, past Zuma, past Montecito, a short stop for coffee in Santa Barbra. And then a right turn onto Highway 154. When I would round the top of the San Marcos pass, a panoramic view of the valley emerged that would take my breath away. The valley’s beauty would leave me with a sense of peacefulness and bliss that I was hard-pressed to find elsewhere. Cruising along the two-lane Highway, the slightest hint of blue played hide and seek with the trees, and then like a wild brushstroke across a canvas, Lake Cachuma came into full view with all its deep blue beauty. My heart would skip a beat as a breath of bliss left my lips. It was my state of grace. It was manifested in an actual physical sensation that enveloped me. My life, at that moment, was somehow lighter. My thoughts had a more precise direction. The weight of time was more buoyant.

Today my rejuvenation comes with a different view and a new lifestyle. Gone is the rush hour traffic – the two-hour roundtrip drive. Gone is the stress. Gone is the output of physical energy to make it through the day. Through the meetings. Through the airports. Through the decisions. Through the expectations.

A Room with a View

And so, here I sit, today in my room with a view. My view is an ancient church with an expansive roof of terracotta tile. The white and blue tiled bell tower sits adjacent to a magnificent massive Palm Tree. This is my state of grace. This is my daily meditation. The blue sky is a backdrop for the billowing white clouds playing hide and seek with the sun. I sit here, at my desk, typing these words. Grateful for my life here in Cuenca, Ecuador.

The Jewel of Ecuador

I have waking trails of bliss that I can follow along the rushing Rio Yanuncay. The rivers in Cuenca, there are three, are daily reminders of the season we are in. A rushing river high on its banks reminds us that the rainy season is upon us, replenishing the earth. As the view and the months change, the rugged stone bed of the river is exposed in all its hardscape beauty. Other paths are winding sinuously along the river toward the Botanical Gardens. Some days the Botanical Garden hosts a pop-up Feria with produce still sprinkled with a bit of Mother Earth. Beautiful indigenous women are selling their fresh vegetables and exotic fruits. They are always dressed in white Ecuadorian hats woven from the Toquilla straw grown in these Andes Mountain Highlands. A hand-woven shawl wrapped around their shoulders, a shield of protection from the chill in the air. The traditional deep royal colors of their velvet falda (skirt) with heavy flower embroidery along the hem sway as they walk.

Cuenca is my daily rejuvenation. My meditation. The beauty and tranquility of the Santa Ynez Valley drew me in, but it was not home. Here in this beautiful city, I am home.

The Haunting Call of the Common Loons

A close friend discovered her rejuvenation in New Hampshire on Squam Lake. The first email she sent from the renovated 1947 summer camp describes the song of the Common Loons at dusk when the light forms a cocoon-like atmosphere around the shore. After sundown, the North Woods lakes reverberate with the echoes of the water birds’ lonesome wails that lull most to sleep along the lakefront. My friend was in this enchanted spot for a woman’s organic arts retreat. This commune of artistic free flight and the peacefulness of her surroundings rekindled her thoughts for a simplification of her life.

The clock that once ticked off the time to marry, build a career and have her children was now set to quietly but incessantly remind her to rebirth herself. The time had come to explore those forgotten dreams, revisit the long-ago goals, and harvest the bounty that time had delivered with age. The haunting call of the Common Loons continually surrounded her thoughts while walking around the lake at dusk. She felt this touching wail of the loons was a call to her soul, and she was listening. To abandon her dreams now would leave her like a lake without a flight of loons bringing on the dusk. It would be unimaginable. She knew she was ready to nurture her artistic muse and conquer the wilderness of the unknown. As darkness descended, her future filled with light.

A Persistent Muse

Upon returning to Los Angeles, her artistic muse hummed with a high-pitched frequency that was impossible to ignore. She had always been fascinated with the concept that a skein of yarn could become a sweater. A woven fiber could transcend string and become a textile. 

In 1877 Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf founded The Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island. Ms. Metcalf sought to increase the accessibility of design education to women. Shortly after my friend sent her children to college, she enrolled at RISD. She and her husband traveled to Providence to settle her into a charming apartment close to campus. He returned to the family home in Los Angeles.

She had packed her dreams, her muse, and her courage. The logs blazed in the small fireplace as the snow fell that first winter night. She reflected on the call of the Loons around the lake. Time stood still in the apartment as a state of grace wove through her and her future. She was where she belonged, for now. April would bring forth the call of Spring, her sixtieth birthday, and her future degree in Textile Design. 

What rejuvenates you?  Please leave me a comment. I would love to know what the terrain of your interior landscape looks like and what inspires you.