Very low

I am feeling very low this week. My short trip up to Tennessee and North Carolina this past weekend has made me feel worse instead of better. I loved the trip - I loved seeing my friends and had a wonderful time. The trees on the mountains were gorgeous in their fall color, the weather was crisp and cold and the corgis were by my side but coming back to Louisiana was a complete and utter let down.

I feel rather stagnate in my current life situation. I know God brought me back to Louisiana for a reason, to teach me something. But I am champing at the bit to LEAVE. I know a momentous change is coming and I desperately want to be on the road - I hate this waiting and not knowing. How hard it is to rest and be at peace when the black dog is grumbling inside.

Fall is my favorite time of year so this particular visitation of the black dog is not welcome.

I hate being jealous of my friends who are planning trips to the Nile or working on their homes or passionate about their careers. I am not jealous of their possessions or income, but I am jealous that they have a path. That there is enough light on it that they can see the next couple of steps. I keep stubbing my toe on a huge boulder in what I guess is my path. It is a very desparate feeling - one of being left behind and there is nothing one can do to stop it. How do you rest in such conditions? How do you stop from despising yourself for your human feelings of jealousy and being left beind? We are herd creatures after all even the introverted ones of us.

And how to see when there is this black dog? How to get excited about anything?

I know that God is there, but it is very hard when one prays and prays and does not receive comfort or light on the path. And yet, I am sure it is there, it is my human stupidness that does not see it or comprehend it. I have so much to learn. I wish I did not have to learn it here.

Will my useful life be over before I learn enough for the next step? Oh if I could sit still in my spirit and wait with joy. I pray fervently to look back next year and not be mired on the path in this dark space.

A 100 Year Vision

This past weekend I got to visit Biltmore for the first time. While the house was impressive (the barn more so for me - but then I am horsey), it was the grounds that amazed me.

When George Vanderbilt decided to build Biltmore, he employed Frederick Law Olmstead to create the grounds. By grounds I mean acres upon acres upon acres of formal and unformal landscapes. The land was bereft of trees and had large washed out gullys on it. Instead of creating just something that would be pretty during Vanderbilt's lifetime, Olmstead had the vision to create a landscape that would only come into its true beauty a 100 years later.

The drive to Biltmore's house is lovely. One feels as if someone cut a curvacious road in a pristine forest. However, it was all created by Olmstead. Each tree planted to produce this affect. And yet the landscape architect never saw it except in his mind.

I wish I had such vision instead of just seeing something for what it is now. What foresight and generousness spirit it must be who creates something amazing that he will never be able to see. Now we have such beautiful landscapes as Biltmore and Central Park because of his vision. I wonder if there ever will be another Olmstead.