This week marks the anniversary of our relocation to edge-of-it-all.

we are celebrating by welcoming a new rescue puppy to join us.

it’s what i do.

i find myself feeling good and comfortable. in my body. in my mind. in my soul…with my body. with my mind. with my soul.

and then i try to sneak a stick-in-the-spokes. just to see how we’ll all handle it.

and then we pull it off. and take some time to simmer in the success of our triumphs.

until we again feel good and comfortable. in our bodies. in our minds. in our souls…with our bodies. with our minds. with our soul.

these three years out here together have been wild. in. every. sense.

we have few of the stressors that negatively impact daily life across America.

no traffic. no wait times. no shuttling around to over scheduled events. no television. no constant news stream. no city lights or noises. no stale or polluted air. no rushing.  no artificial ingredients.

we traded overstimulation for constant acute awareness. all four-of-us scan the horizon constantly.  we see what joins us out here. we are participating. i am with the peeps, alone, much of the time. and we are out. on foot, on skis, and on bikes. it is my responsibility to remain keenly alert and vigilant whenever we are outside. it is my job also to help them learn to do the same. we talk regularly about risk management and emergency action plans. what would we do ifs??? we’ve had close encounters, some terrifyingly close, and we learned lessons. existing out here is both simple and primitive.

it has taught me profound lessons in the health and safety of remaining steady on the moderate path. where i used to search for the fine line between doing it and overdoing it, i now find myself comfortably floating in the space between extremes.  living out here is extreme enough. we don’t have to risk it further in all our endeavors. we moderate.

extremely moderate? moderately extreme?

i am on a life-long quest for grace. i have learned in the past three years to find grace in the equanimity that lies in all the in-betweens. the more time i spend there, the more i am able to practice living gracefully. i mentioned for years that grace seemed so incredibly elusive to me, i just didn’t know how to share space with it yet.

right now, we search the willows for four moose before breakfast each morning.  we are constantly monitoring for a sighting of one of the three bears that have come through recently. we have coyotes galore. ducks, frogs, and three bald eagles that soar up and down the creek every afternoon.  we watch a herd of alpen-glowing elk graze in the late evening sun on the ridge across from us. the stars are giving way to the moonbeams that are growing to almost full. Venus shines brightly in the east every early morning to introduce the sun…should she choose to make an appearance.

we head down to Denver tomorrow. for a wee blast of city-livin’. it’s an incredibly important part of this big picture. of how we are able to make it work. we must get out. to the cities, to the oceans, to the heat, to the hugs of family, to the change. to the diversity. to the buzz. to the exposure. to the balance.

we felt like the cosmic highway lit up for us when the opportunity to place our family out  here on the edgeofitall arose. this experience continues to grow better and better with each passing year. remaining grateful day in and day out is easy-peasy to do.