Home: an Individual Oasis
Pretty amazing the world we live in. Start off in the morning with sunshine, 30 degrees, frosty and forest home. Pack into the car, drive across state line and 55 miles West to not only be in a different region but climate. Now, 50 degrees and drizzly rain. So, board a plane, cross another state line as you fly 2 hours or less than 1000 miles South. Now, its 90 degrees and sunshine.
Each city, small town, region and area is home to someone. Leaving the forest, gorge, rivers, lakes and mountains and gazing upon on the flight to watch the terrain change so quickly. Farm land, flat valley towns nestled between mountain ranges and oceans of dry desert land empty and brown to land in an area that is a cement city of freeways, traffic, lights, endless roads that just connect to another one with neighborhood of houses tucked in every corner.
Each is still home to someone. Home is the personal space and oasis we create to our desires and needs. We adapt and survive and some of us have scrambled away and chose to build a different sanctuary pending our needs. To have rich green forests with lush green under brush, takes a damper, colder climate. Some people crave unlimited warm sunshine. City folks rely on easy quick access to unlimited stores, adapt with every electronic device and need accessible demands at the finger tips. While living off the grid, we crave nature, peaceful open spaces of mountains, trees, wildlife and structure of solitude. We may all share the same date, a different time zone and definite change of longitude or latitude which you can say we have the same seasons, but see them from a different point of view.
Seasons, Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter come to mind. Hmm, for some areas there is endless winter, summer comes straight on with excessive humidity and changes back to Winter over night. Those in the unlimited sunny and dry areas think they have 4 normal seasons with different plants, flowers and growing seasons. But, others refer to the California seasons as Fire, Flood ( one month when they receive all the rainfall for one year), earthquake and wind season. The Gorge really does have 4 traditional seasons, while we have higher rainfall than California, we experience Winter with snow, cold and lack of life in plants, Spring with warming of the Earth, animals emerging from hibernation and flowers finding the way up through the soil. Then Summer, less rain, longer days, growing season for gardens and out door play of sunshine to moving into Fall, where the leaves change for brilliance of oranges and red and ......fall from the trees, forest animals prepare for the stark of the next season and sotring up for the cold months ahead. Seasons, really are, " marked by particular weather patterns and daylight hours, resulting from the earth's changing position with regard to the sun." Each region around the world has its own "seasons".
We build our oasis to meet the desires and demands of our lives and adapt to our seasons we encounter. The needs of our oasis are individualized whether needing unlimited communication access for work and play or the unlimited beauty and sounds of only nature? When we can't have both, as individual as possible create the surroundings within our space. Tucked into a crowded neighborhood off the main through fair and build walls around our fort to enclose our space with peace and beauty and to keep others out. Through your efforts, your house, ranch, log home or apartment can become both a private sanctuary and a welcoming, serene, and healthy place to live in and visit. An organized and comfortable home can have a calming effect on you, your family, and guests, as well as be your personal escape from the rest of the world. If we can't escape the hussle and bussle of city life and actually live in the serene nature we can create or replicate our spaces with peaceful sounds, sitting areas, lighting to fullfill our needs. Replicate the sounds of nature with water structures for rippling water sounds, feeders to attract the song birds or squirrels while building the indoors with all the updated electronic gadgets to turn on lights or safety devices to guard our castle.
Its all home and how we build and create our own oasis to meet personal, career, and family needs within our region. Make your home a place of comfort, and you will feel nurtured and cared for whenever you are there. Guard it and protect it to keep your space yours and personal to who you are.
The Gorge is an oasis, but is not for everyone to make it home. Which is ok, because it would not sustain the rugged natural beauty if it turned into a freeway of traffic and track homes.
