Home on the Cliff - At the California Coast

Stuck to the window frame in front of my desk is a picture of a house at the ocean. My dream home. 

It is also the place where the story of my next book might happen. Last week I wrote the following words. Would you keep reading?

Drunk from this new beginning. My cup of life is filled with sage, rosemary and love. 

This is the magic place where I will start with all of who and what life made me. Where lies to please and appease end. Where nothing but straight forward action is required. Not a lot of spoken words, but kindness and compassion.

The house came furnished. All I brought fit in my car: a suitcase with clothes and a box of books, notebooks and pens, kitchen stuff, two sets of sheets and towels, the teddy bear my mother gave me when I was six years old and a machete for the weeds. 

It is my homecoming. A house on the cliffs at the wild ocean, where waves pound away millenials of black rock. They will shatter any baggage I don't need on this journey. I will get up before the rising sun's glow turns mountains to the east into pink canvasses of my intentions. I will stand between deers, white in the moonlight, my hands warm from a cup of rum spiced tea. I will just rest and see, listen and smell, feel and taste. I will forget that I am breathing. I will walk barefoot along the shore into the wind while cloud layers race from silver linings to the crest behind my home and further, where I can see them only when I close my eyes and dream.

I will dream a lot. And write. My only luxuries other than Swiss chocolate of the highest quality that melts on my tongue and rouses all my senses.

I will not have fake friends, a boss and deadlines. My money lasts for at least a year. Maybe I'll get a dog as companion so I can keep my door and windows open day and night. A kind creature that bites only when I tell it to, in the worst of all circumstances, which will never happen. I'm safe in this new haven. I will create it to be completely mine, just as I envision it in morning meditations and sunset notes like these I'm writing now.

I will prove my mother wrong who tries to scare me from giving up everything to come here. She tells me stories of monsters who kill campers in their sleeping bags, of raging flames that herd families towards no choice but jump the cliffs, of mudslides that bury villages in seconds.

Fear will not stop my lifelong dream from coming true now, deep into the second part of my life. Hot flashes, wrinkles on my neck, that grey hair on the bottom of my chin and extra roles of fat above my hips - I welcome them as reminders that death is certain and time of death unknown.

This is my moment to take charge. If I get lonely, and I don't think I will, I'll take a book, a walk, a bath, a nap. I will write, dance, jodel and eat chocolate. If I'm still lonely, I will get that dog, a stray one or a rescue for this, my last, my sunset trip.

But wait a second, what's that noise? Tires on gravel. Somebody driving down my street at this time of the day? Almost night! A dog would now be really nice. A big one, please. Maybe it is the nosy lady from behind me at the coffee shop who comes to check in with cake, bread, wine, whatever her excuse will be to get a glimpse of how I live. 

A friendly visitor. I'm sure. 

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