The people -- an elderly bed-ridden woman, her middle-aged daughter, her thirty-something daughter, and her three children (one of whom is a miracle four-year-old who was not expected to survive birth) -- reside literally in the woods, down a rocky private drive littered with rusted cars and discarded detritus best suited to junk yards. At the end are three inventive self-created homes with imaginative use of found materials and almost entirely self-sufficient (generators for electricity and car reflectors in the sun for the nights the generators fail, wood-burning stoves for heat, a spring water collector, an old school bus for storage. Their creativity and determination are large, but not as large as their love of family, determination, and cheer. In the larger world, others might see them as impverished; in my eyes they're rich.
As rich and as determined and hard-working as the woodpecker I stalked in my yard late this afternoon, camera in hand. His bold trill, determined pecking and boring into each stump, and brilliant red head and the woodswomen's natural beauty lifted my spirit.
Who's the luckiest person on the edge of the woods? That's easy: me.
No comments:
Post a Comment