Four Seasons in Home

How I enjoy a good book. A book that swoops in and twirls me, and I, captivated and nearly breathless, can scarcely be set down.

How I enjoy a good book. A book that makes me think. One wherein I can read a sentence or two and stop, ponder a bit, read some more in the paragraph, and take my eyes off the page again – to think. To say to myself, “Hmmm, I never thought about it in quite that way before” or “Really? Could I actually change what I believe about this? Could I even articulate what I believe about it?” or “That is such a good description, I could eat it. Why can’t I write like that?” And then, even after I’ve read – and pondered – through the whole good book, I keep coming back to parts of it, revisiting it in my mind, months or even years later.

For me, “Four Seasons in Rome” was such a book. In it, author Anthony Doerr records observations he makes on his life during the one year he leaves his home in the States to live in Rome with his young family.

On the value of habit in our lives, Doerr says this: “Without habit, the beauty of the world would overwhelm us". I get that. For instance, if we would put as much into witnessing every daily creative act of God as we did regarding the solar eclipse the summer of 2017, we’d be rendered useless. We’d possibly even pass out from either fatigue or thrall, or both.

Doerr also brings out the other side of it: "But the habit is dangerous, too. The act of seeing can quickly become unconscious and automatic." He goes on to say that the easier or more entrenched or familiar an experience becomes, the fainter our sensation of it becomes.

He ends his discussion of the topic by saying, "Leave home, leave the country, leave the familiar. Only then can routine experience...become new all over again.”

Shauna Niequist, in her book Present Over Perfect, says sort of the same thing about the benefit of a getaway. “Part of the magic of the lake is that it isn’t home – it’s away, and away allows us to see rhythms and dimensions of our lives more clearly. So it doesn’t necessarily work for us to live here at the lake, but I do want the way of living that I’ve tasted here to inform and ground how I live everywhere, all year long…simple, connected to God and His world and people, uncomplicated by lots of stuff.”

Maybe this resonates more clearly with me just now because of having returned home three days ago from our anniversary trip to Costa Rica. In many ways, our time there was simple and uncomplicated. I felt connected to God and His world through the beauty that abounded in that lovely land. I want to allow that simplicity to inform the way I live back home.

But I wonder. Is there a way to leave the familiar to discover the new by not physically leaving one's country, one’s familiar, or one’s home at all? What are the ways, if it is even possible, to have Four Seasons in Home (instead of Four Seasons in Rome) and have routine become new all over again?

I have set out into this year to find out. To discover the ways, if there are any. Hence the name for this new blog: Dani’s Discoveries. In it I want to record both discoveries I make when I do physically leave the country and when I stay at home and have routine become new all over again because of viewing it from a different angle or trading a habitual perspective for a fresher one.

Maybe I can, within these four walls of routine and familiarity, learn to live as if I went away and came back to see home in a different, more appreciative light.

Perhaps a key ingredient is wonder. In Costa Rica, every day was a delight to embrace. Ordinary water lapped, thundered, surged, tumbled, roared, plunged, curled and foamed. Birds and animals showed up (or were pointed out to us by natives) in the wild, brilliant and squawking or docile and secretive. And the sun – the daily orb – was phenomenal in its strength and splendor. One morning I even set my alarm to wake up in time to watch the big orange ball climb up out of the ocean, and it was so worth it. There was always some sort of beauty to behold around the next corner; sometimes I felt like I was going about with my proverbial mouth hanging open. Wonder will do that to you.

I’m sure that fresh beauty abounds at home, in my daily routine, too.

Will I be able to see it?

I wonder.

This Post's Quotable:

Quote: Recently, a friend of ours named Dave gave us another story to add to our collection of People’s Crossing-the-Border Experiences. He and some of his family were going from the States to visit some friends in Canada. In a small border town in Minnesota, while looking for the place to cross, they got lost. By the time Dave drove up to the border crossing booth, he was considerably confused and frustrated. He got the border official on high alert when he answered the typical question, “Do you have anything to declare?” Thinking of the small token of appreciation they had brought along for their friends, Dave replied, “Nothing but a hostage gift.”

This Post's Childhood Memory:  

Memory: I remember taking off my dad’s shoes when he got home from work. It became somewhat of a ritual for us children to “help” him out of his carpenter work shoes before supper. I loved when it was my turn. (Actually, I think sometimes my twin and I did it together – Anni on one foot and me on the other.) Dad would sit down in the living room on the rocker with the comfortable creak. I’d kneel in front of one high-topped work shoe and take in the smell of leather, the lumber Dad had handled that day, and the sweat of his day’s work. Sometimes he’d help me undo the big knot in the laces at the top. Then I’d uncriss and uncross the shoestrings from their moorings on the hooks, down to the holes they were threaded through. Then the overlapping laces had to be loosened and pulled up far enough to allow Dad adequate space to pull his foot out of the shoe. I’d grab on to the shoe heel and pull and pull to get it off. Sometimes he’d pretend I hadn’t opened it wide enough for his foot to slip out, so I’d really pull and yank on it. Then it would come off and I’d almost fall over backward, giggling gleefully. Such an accomplishment! Next came the challenge of taking off the sock that seemed to be plastered to his foot. At last, when I had peeled off the damp and stinky cotton down to the bare foot, Dad would wiggle his toes satisfactorily and thank me for helping. I realize now that it should have been me doing the thanking – for a dad who took the time to create connection with his daughter; for putting love into shoe leather.

A final note: You can see a lot more of our Costa Rica pictures in several segments I posted here on Facebook.