Upstairs/Downstairs

As I write this, I am upstairs. I have a roomy study that looks out over our front lawn where I can partially see one neighbor’s house over the tops of some cedar trees, a log cabin home they built themselves three years ago. Usually there are bunnies all over the yard and sometimes a fox, and hummingbirds at the flowers outside the window. The room faces east and gets the morning sun which I rarely witness due to the fact that I am working downstairs and facing west.

Having a room like this, and the time to use it, is a big reason we shipped out of Houston. So far I’ve not spent much more time in this room than it took to unpack it. Turns out we’re still going to have to fight daily to achieve a slower pace and find room to unwind our souls. The phone rings as if we’d never left and clients can’t see that as they speak a deer meanders past the window. The clock ticks just as fast here as there. Still, we have an ideal we’re working toward—a balanced lifestyle in a world that requires we pay the mortgage and medical insurance and relegate any pursuit of higher living to our spare time. So it will be up to us to navigate our souls and bodies through the demands of corporate enterprise and come through not only unscathed, but whole and spiritually healthy. Meanwhile, whether I am downstairs working or upstair dreaming, I have my rooms with a view.