An unwelcome adventure

July 19, 2019

I prefer to select my adventures. Travel, hiking, and work are ways that I get to explore the world in a time and manner usually of my own choosing. But three weeks ago something happened to me that, perhaps as when Bilbo Baggins first met the wizard Gandalf in The Hobbit, has become an unexpected journey that is taking me out of my comfort zone.

I was walking beneath the oaks and redwoods on the road where I live, a short distance from my front door, when my landlady (and neighbor) Jennifer drove up alongside of me and said hello. Usually we have a friendly chat and then go our separate ways. But this time she told me that she wanted to talk about our relationship. Since we don’t have much of a relationship, I had no idea what she was talking about.

Jennifer got out of her car and gently informed me that her niece needs a place to live, and that although I’ve lived in my granny unit for 34 years, I need to move out to make way for her relative. Our conversation was cordial, but I was blindsided by this development, and stunned. I don’t know where I’ll go.

At 67, I’m not as open to change as I once was. Sonoma County is a very desireable place to live, so the rents are high and there’s lots of competition for the kind of rural cottages that I prefer. I initially dreaded the uncertainty and stress of house/apartment hunting in a difficult rental market, and I’m still feeling sadness, loss, fear, as well as doubts that I’ll be able to find an affordable refuge in the country, with oaks, redwoods, fruit trees, vineyards, and great views like I have now. I may not own my home legally, but I own my home and my neighborhood visually and emotionally. I have a sense of belonging and a sense of place here. So losing my home is a major life change.

But it’s also a lesson in impermanence. Nothing in the physical world lasts forever – not our health, jobs, or homes. I’ve had a long run of good fortune – a beautiful neighborhood, excellent health, the freedom and means to travel, and the opportunity to follow a rewarding spiritual path. After 34 years in paradise, maybe I should just appreciate what I’ve had and still have (for now, anyway), rather than worrying about not having it anymore.

My ego wants to control the outcome of my housing search through willpower and hard work. It wants to get what it wants. But there’s a real chance that I’ll have to settle for less than what I want because of financial limitations. Hence my fear that I’ll be disappointed. And if I should have to settle for less, how will I handle it? With equanimity and grace, or with bitterness and self-recrimination?

There’s another perspective which I’m in the process of embracing, though not always successfully. That other way of seeing the world is from the loftier outlook of one’s inner being, the part of oneself that outlives death and that is therefore not afraid of the vicissitudes of earthly life. The part of us that counsels: Don’t worry, be happy. The part of us that allows for curiosity, wonder, surprise, and the joy of surrendering control over external events. The part of us that allows for serendipity. The part of us that says in a soft voice, “Trust the Force, Luke.”

Meanwhile, my search for a physical haven continues apace. I’m networking like crazy, and searching online. So far I’ve found two possibilities, though neither one can compare with my current Shangri La. Hope may eventually have to give way to reality.

I leave in a week for an adventure of my choosing: a long awaited return to Ireland and a first time visit to Scotland. Once I return from those travels I’ll need to deal even more urgently with the uncertainty of my housing search. When it comes to my expectations for a desirable sanctuary, I’ll have to face either the music or the firing squad, as fate will have it.

As Don Quixote sang in Man of La Mancha, “And the wild winds of fortune will carry me onward, whithersoever they blow. Onward to glory I go.”