a morning in the mountains

I drove up into the mountains today. An interview for a practicum position beginning next Fall semester. Tiny house nestled among the mountains, foggy ridges of smoky blue rising on either side. Each room of the house filled with toys, the walls adorned in posters of bright colors, tiny children with tired mothers in the waiting room. A house of healers, all women, the friendliness of rural town-folk a welcome change from the chaos of the city. Life appeared to move slower there and my mind slowed with the movements of my body as I embraced the time of my morning, comfort and peace rolling over me with the damp fog dancing off the mountain’s edges.

I had intended to use the early afternoon for my Artist Date. My camera accompanied me but the fog did not lift, the rain as steady as the streams running alongside the base of the mountains. It is a place I hope to explore more in the future, with its famous apple orchards and hiking trails only miles from the house where I interviewed. Even the highways are small up there, fellow drivers happy to accompany the lost wanderings of a blonde “city girl”. And yet I know that my comfort and the peace I found this morning was simply because I am not, nor ever will be, a “city girl”.

The first question I was asked at my interview was “How was the drive up? We know it’s long and most people don’t realize how far we are from the city.” My response: “peaceful”, “beautiful”, “a welcome break of solitude”.

I will not know for several more days if this tiny house in the mountains, this house of women healers, will offer me a place to work among them. I do not know yet if those mountains will become my weekly solace, my haven, or simply remain as a dream of serenity for weekend escapes. As with so many things in life, I do not know what the future will bring for me. But I trust the future. I trust that God will lead me on the right path for my life. And I trust the beauty and mesmerism of those smoky blue mountains.