A Beginner’s Observations From Living In Our Treehouse

A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.

Leo Tolstoy

Hey, Lovelies!

I hope you managed to get some quality downtime over the Easter Break.

It’s been a wet weekend, here at our treehouse. The internet connection keeps failing, and it will be six to eight weeks more before I have my new fibre-to-the-house system installed. So, my old habits of constantly checking emails, being on social media, and working mad hours online have been replaced by silence, rest, cups of tea, writing, and then short pilgrimages to my mother’s house, where I use her internet connection to do what I can within a given time frame.

Finally, I have been forced to slow down.

Being unplugged has given me the gift of more deeply connecting to this new Country I find myself upon – Gubbi Gubbi Country (these are the First Nations Traditional Owners of this place). The forest is all around me. It gives me so many soundscapes, so many changing landscapes. I think I could take the rest of my life and still not know all there is to know and experience about this land.

I am getting to know individual trees. I am being introduced to the birds and lizards and possums and snakes and bats and wallabies and other critters who live here in the forest.

I am learning that the wind makes many different sounds in the trees.

I am learning about the different kinds of rain and fog and mist here on the mountain that is my new home.

I see that the green of my environment is a green of many colours, and that these colours change with the time of day, the light, the temperature, and the weather.

There is a tree outside my window that dances. When she moves she makes a music so sweet and soothing that my whole body relaxes.

At night I can watch the sky from my bed, and I have my curtain-less windows thrown open so that it feels as if I am sleeping in the trees themselves.

I don’t think I have ever felt so held by a place, so nurtured. It’s restoring me, piece by piece. And I know, right down to my bones, that I will never go back to the madness that was my life before now.

I look forward to sharing more of this special place with you soon,

Love, the whispering wind, and the smell of rain and fog, Nicole xx