I’m sitting on the steps of the old heritage house at Kopje Regional Park not far from my sister Diane’s place on the Okanagan Lake. I stopped here after driving to my apple tree and picking another bag full of those delicious apples that I try to get my hands on every year. I was lucky. This is the second time I go and fill a bag. Last year someone beat me to it.
So here I am sitting in a spot of sunshine on the front steps of this old place. It’s peaceful here. Not a soul around. I can barely hear the occasionally traffic on the road up above. Its’ just a faint hum of sound far in the background. What I do hear is quiet. Blessed quiet. The only sounds that pierce through the silence every now and then are those that belong here, those of nature.
Right now, Irwin, the crow is making his presence known and every now and then there’s the call of a loon and sea gulls on the little island about half way across the lake. This peacefulness and this beauty are absolutely soothing to my soul. Breathe taking.
Huge towering trees, four or five different varieties, one of which I recognize as a walnut tree, are all around me. They are close together, yet not too close together to box me in. I have a first class view of the lake, the gentle ripples on the surface, the rocky bottom at the water’s edge, the water clear, pristine. There are log posts sticking out of the water, ghosts, a remnant of a once existing dock.
The mountain across the lake is reflected in the water’s surface making it look like a double exposure picture. The air is pure here. Not at all like where I live in the city. I breathe in deep into my lungs. It smells of fall and the colors are there to prove it. A kaleidoscope, a banquet to the eyes. There are many shades of green, the vibrant reds, yellow and rusty coloured leaves, some of them already resting on the grass floor below like nuggets of gold everywhere.
The sun is beaming down on me and it feels so good with the cool air all around me. It’s like I’m being cradled, wrapped in a warm blanket of love. It gives me a sense of security somehow. There are only a few little puffs of white clouds dotting an otherwise clear blue sky. I’m good here surrounded by these treasures. I don’t need anything more, not right now, right here in this moment. I am complete in this natural setting, just me, my pen, my journal and my thoughts as they float by. I could stay here all day. I could stay here all year. I could easily live here in this place of calm and beauty.
Whoever claimed stake and set up here was man after my own heart. The location is such as to make full use of the sun from morning till night. The sun is my source of energy. Without it I suffer. I lose who I am. I disappear somewhere into the gray gloom of winter.
The peace here is such that I can actually hear the leaves fall. Imagine that. I crave this kind of setting. I go out of my way to find in answer to the gnawing in my gut like ravaging hunger pains. I’m like the bee that travels miles and miles to find the flower to pollinate or the deer that comes all the way down the mountain to drink from the lake.
I am pretending. This is my house. My place. I walked around on the wide veranda and peeked in through the windows. Doing so is like being taken back in time to a different era, a different life than the one I live now. The house is furnished with what one would now consider to be antiques – pieces that reflect what some would consider a more difficult time. But from my viewpoint it reflects a less complicated more simple life and time.
In the living room there’s the old piano, the kerosene lamps, a wooden rocking chair with a stuffed seat, high wing back chairs, a love seat and a crank-up gramophone. In the dining room there’s a wooden table and chairs, a hutch, a pot belly stove, and a huge cabinet which houses a radio with the big dials. There’s a Singer sewing machine in a corner of the room and I can see a cream separator when I look through the kitchen doorway.
The house is not cramped and crammed to the roof in every little nook and cranny with stuff, like most people’s houses are today. It’s simple. That’s what pulls me always. The simplicity. It makes life seem less complicated somehow. Something I seem too long for more and more lately. Simplicity. Quiet. I wish I had a key to the place. I would pull one of those big stuffed rocking chairs out here on the veranda and rock myself to my heart’s content until I got tired of it or until the sun sets on the other side of the mountain, whichever comes first. I suspect it would be the latter.
I sit back down on the front steps and I find myself wishing I had packed a lunch and a couple of drinks so I could spend the day. As it is, my stomach will likely be the one to eventually pull me away from this little piece of heaven. Bu then, there’s always the apples. I do have a bag full of apples...............
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