“I don’t want to move back to California! It’s a burning hot hell-scape!” These were the emphatic words of 9 year old Juniper Sky when we announced we were selling our Vermont homestead and returning to Topanga.
And honestly, every September, it’s difficult not to be riddled with regret that we made that decision. That is because for hundreds of years even before I came into existence, my European ancestors marked September as the time when the air temperature has already turned. Growing up on the east coast, I experienced the same. Labor Day meant fall had arrived. As the earth warmed, by the time I was in college, it began to remain hot into September. And I hated it. It felt wrong on a visceral level.
When we lived in Vermont, however, I got to return to the seasonality that felt natural to me. There is a day in August—a precise breeze, I think—when the wind carries a slight chill to your skin, and you know: it’s changed. Summer is over; autumn has arrived. Then over weeks and weeks, the trees put on a most glorious display of colorful foliage. The brilliant yellows and rich golds of the beeches and birches, the bold reds or fiery oranges of the maples, the tans and browns of the oaks are all juxtaposed against a deep, blue fall sky. As you admire the pinnacle of autumnal beauty, the leaves twirl and fall to the ground. The cool air and warm sun work together to create a most blissful experience of being alive. That is what my soul thinks of as September.
But here, in Topanga, just as August rolls out and September rolls in, we are smacked with oven-like heat waves. Though I’ve lived here for a total of 7.5 years by now, I always make the same unguarded mistake of thinking “huh, summer wasn’t too hot this year” in late August. And then I hear an imaginary, sinister laugh—a cosmic joke being played on me when suddenly the sun becomes dangerously strong and the weather takes a leaf from hell’s book. From here on out until we get rain (which could be months from now), it just gets drier and more susceptible to bursting into flames.
And then the words of 9 year old Juniper return to me.
Now, when I say it’s hard not to feel riddled with regret, I’ve started to untangle that more for myself. It’s like if I had gotten into a dire situation and had to saw off my own limb to survive. I would always regret that I had to do something so gruesome and so permanently altering. I’d definitely miss my arm. But I wouldn’t regret surviving, and I’d likely do the same thing again if I was put in the same situation.
That is how selling our land and home in Vermont feels. We had come to an impasse of several sorts. To sustain our life, we needed more income. Senya had really struggled socially in 6th grade, and I felt they could use another year or two homeschooling to recover and further develop their sense of self. But homeschooling in such an isolatory environment didn’t feel sustainable any longer. Collin, out of the blue, was offered an opportunity to start a new company that was based out here. We discussed it daily on our morning walks for a year. We decided, all told, it seemed to be the best path emerging from that era into the next.
And I am grateful for all that we’ve experienced here. The company Collin started and leads is thriving. Our financial situation is healthy. I don’t take these things lightly in the current economical situation or when I consider our journey to get here. We did homeschool for two more years after that—two, extra years that I got to pal around with Sen and Junes all day every day. I will never regret that. But when that ran it’s course and no longer felt viable, we found the school of our dreams. Senya is absolutely thriving as a sophomore at said school which seems to be tailor-made for them. Both Juniper and Senya have wonderful friends. As do Collin and I. We have our health, and we live in a beautiful, safe place. All that is all gold.
And yet, a week ago, just as the summer doubled down on it’s excruciating, dry heat, Juniper’s dam of grief cracked. She shared with us the level of sadness, loss, and anger that she has about not living on our land anymore. From her perspective, life was working perfectly there. She had wonderful friends, she loved school, she loved her animals, the seasons, our lifestyle…she had it all. And she didn’t take it for granted. She treasured it. She went outside everyday to swing on her swings in our beloved moss meadows or to play with our bunnies or chickens. She swam in the pond every summer and skated on it every winter. She LIVED for truck sledding (Collin would drive his truck up the mountain with the kiddos’ sleds tied onto the back, and then they’d sled back down), and she had become quite skilled at skiing. She loved the cozy fires in the woodstove and the maple sugaring in late winter/early spring—she’d drink the sap straight from the trees.
And then one day it was all taken from her. That’s the difference between loss and cost. For Collin and me, no matter how much we grieve what we left in Vermont, we calculated (to the best of our ability) the cost. It was a tremendous cost, but we also gained what we needed and wanted to gain from the move. For Juniper, it was a loss that happened to her.
And anyone reading this blog who has read my other blog posts knows that we tried moving back two years in a row. The first year, just as we decided to move, there was a giant mudslide on the main canyon road that connects Topanga to the coast. No one wanted live in a canyon without access to the coast, so our house sat on the market until summer was ending and we needed to make school decisions. So we took it off the market and decided to try again the following spring when the boulevard re-opened.
So, we did, and this put our attempted house sale in the aftermath of the raging wildfire. After the intial flurry of people wanting to move to Topanga because it was one neighborhood that didn’t burn down, there was—yet again—an even larger mudslide (due to the fact that the fire had burned away all the trees and chapparal that held the dirt in place) and this time it didn’t just bury the road—it destroyed it. And so, even now, they are rebuilding the road which means that instead of taking 8 minutes to get to the coast, it takes about an hour. So yet again, no one wanted to buy our house.
So, I have to just take that as nature giving a strong boundary for us to remain here for this time. So we’ve committed to stay for the duration of Senya’s highschool (3 more school years). I’ve also committed to loving my life here and being grateful for all I have. I’ve learned the hard way, that the operating system I install in my brain follows me wherever I go. So if I’m running a system that focuses on the things that I wish were different or the things I don’t have, I will run that program wherever I am. Moving doesn’t change that. I don’t have beautiful autumns here, but I didn’t have enough sunshine in Vermont. If I am chasing things that I think are better elsewhere, it’s a flaw in the system. Conversely, if I’m running a program that develops an appreciation for what I have through a contemplative lifestyle that finds meaning in the mundane and growth in the challenges, that will follow me wherever I go. I have a very fulfilling social life here, and I had a very rich nature connection in Vermont.
But sometimes the operating system can not be optimized because of an underlying problem like when a computer gets a virus (I’m going to have to stop this analogy soon because I don’t actually know much about computers). Sometimes the virus, so to speak, is unresolved trauma (like I wrote about in my last post) or grief. In that case, trying to coerce someone into an operating system of gratitude is just adding more drag and weight to the program. If someone feels shamed or guilted into putting a shine on a life they can’t connect with, it feels false and alienating.
I know that when I share with some people that Juniper is still devastated about the loss of our land, they don’t get it. Because, from their perspective especially, her life is pretty amazing. She surfs in Malibu, she acts in two different theatre groups, she goes to a nature school with mentors that embrace her spirit (even when she’s surly), and we have a tight family and friend group out here. So, I think people can feel a little confused and maybe even judgmental about her sadness.
But the thing about un-grieved loss is that it causes depression. And some grief is just so deep that it’s hard to unpack all at once. In fact, it’s terrifying to face it at all because it feels like it may swallow us whole. So the impulse is sometimes to stuff it all down, ignore it, distract ourselves, or deny that it’s something we need to let ourselves feel. But grief, regret, loss—these things don’t just dissolve on their own. Even if our coping mechanism makes us look like we are doing fine, if we have unconfronted grief, it can often come out sideways (self-destructive behaviors, impulsivity, addictions, etc). We need to eventually sit with the sadness, allow ourselves to grieve, feel the pain, embrace the sadness, and go through the storm before the sun can return. To put it in Simon and Garfunkle terms, we need to say “hello, darkness, my old friend” before we can resume “feeling groovy.”
I’m hoping that part of the reason Juniper was able to share some of her grief (and thus begin to process it) is that she feels safe enough to do so now. Maybe she feels now that the ground beneath her feet is stable enough now—with our family, her school, her friends, and the cadence of life happening here for almost three years again—that she feels safe to start to unpack some of the deep feelings of loss and sadness.
Whatever the case may be, I’m here for it, and I’ll follow her into the dark.
