I had a vision of a house I want to build.

It is a tiny house, because I do not need large spaces for myself and the quiet gatherings I like to have. No, just a well-stocked kitchen; a shelf for books and tea mugs; a space enough to dance.

This vision has clean lines and an ample deck, because I like to be outside with the trees.

This vision and this house mean stability. It means the same. And I am a woman of change.

When I was a child I once exchanged the spot for all of the cups with the bowls and plates. Why have the cups in the same cupboard forever and forever and a day? I wanted the habits of myself and my family to be new.

Living eight miles out of town with no neighbours, my brothers and I used our imaginations to play. On bored winter days—too cold to go outside—we would switch bedrooms using some scientific method to determine who would now be where.

I was a child of change.

That change has followed me throughout my twenties. It’s chased after me through countries and continents, loves and homes. I have never been held in one place long without the promise of future change.

A September or two ago I took a long bridge to a red island. I stayed in the home of a woman who had built it with her own hands. Together we walked the land and would speak in soft voices in rooms with soft lighting in some of the corners and spaces she’d made. I wondered if I would ever follow that path and find a land that I loved and wanted to build a home upon.

I am a woman of change. Another cycle draws near completion and I look out at this vast wide world and wonder where the seeds I throw out will latch on and grow. I wonder where I will be pulled to next. I wonder if I will stop changing so much and stay in one place and learn what it means to be outwardly still the way I have learned to be inwardly still.

There is no evolution of consciousness without change. All this change and all these new circumstances have forced me to grow. I am forced to watch how I respond in situations that I wouldn’t have encountered were it not for this driving force of change.

Perhaps one day I will settle down. It will be a place with trees and space enough to build a room attached to a flat deck enclosed by trailing vines.

Perhaps one day I will build a vision of a house I’ve seen.

For now, I will continue to change the spaces I inhabit. I’ll learn and grow and take with me all the changing I’ve done.

I’ll build a home inside my heart because I take that with me everywhere I go.

Relephant Read:

Everything the Buddha Ever Taught in 2 Words.

Author: Guenevere Neufeld

Editor: Renee Picard

Photo via author