A Rational Animal

The view from the living room couch where I spent a long weekend.

[Sigh . . . .]

After three days of much-needed R&R with a friend, it’s back to the salt mines. 

Yes, that really was the view from the couch, where I sat with my laptop, catching up on work.  This place is my haven - it always centers me in a way no place else does.  I can focus in a way that I can nowhere else, and I always get a tremendous amount of work accomplished there, all while my spirit rests and gets back into balance.  And every time I have to go back out into the world, I feel like I leave a little piece of my soul behind.

I suppose there are multiple reasons for its effect; at a quotidian level, it’s probably as simple as the altitude and the clarity of the air.  But this place renews body, mind, and spirit in a deeper way.  There’s a symbiotic relationship between any land and the person who lives on it:  Each absorbs the other’s spirit, giving and receiving in a way that marks both, whether for good or for ill.  This is one of those rare places, occupied by one of those rare people, that combine to create a truly magical world of their own.  And that, I suppose, is the key:  having a friend whose beauty of spirit imbues the entire environment, including my own soul.