Dispatches from the deck: Looking to the outdoors for answers on a new way of living

What does it look like to live on your deck?

Soggy socks, and an outdoor recliner moving this way and that throughout the day as you follow the path of the sun.

Honestly, everything has gotten soggy this month including my laptop, my meditation pillow and the paper towels in the outdoor kitchen. The main reason for this constant dampness is what probably drove civilization indoors. It’s much more controlled, isn’t it?

The temperature stays fairly constant. You don’t have to quickly move everything when thunder clouds gather. You don’t have to remember to take things in at night, to protect from the dew.

But, this is exactly what I absolutely love about my 6 hours or more on my deck each day. It’s just a bit out of my control, still I always feel held in the comfortable, if not slightly wet lap of Mother Nature. And on those good days, what could be better than looking up at a ceiling of crystalline blue October sky?

Like anyone living in our modern world, it was necessary for me to develop some sort of routine for my deck living in order to “get things done.” It was fun to develop new patterns. What can I take outdoors that I had previously done inside?

The list is pretty long: morning devotions and my coffee ritual; Wim Hof breathing practice; yoga; watercolor painting; online teaching; food preparations and dining; entertaining; tub soak, cold showers; chatting on the cellphone; reading; dancing to Spotify; folding laundry; paying bills.

The most surprising thing is how eager I have been to step out onto the deck each morning to take a deep breath and feel a sense of calm settle in immediately. Remember part of my move to the outdoors had to do with a need to “get away” without going anywhere because I couldn’t. I had a husband in need of care. It worked. I feel like I have created a whole new world. I have included others slowly but surely.

One blessing was that a neighbor and I worked together to establish weekly dinners on the deck with different families on Westerly who brought heart healthy side dishes to accompany the low sodium main dishes I had learned to prepare for my husband. In this way, if he was tired or didn’t feel like socializing, he could easily go inside and everyone just hung around until he came back, or not. And, the good news, the very good news, is that he is better now.

I have heard it said that we don’t know our neighbors nowadays because we don’t need them. Well, I need them. I believe we are living in difficult times, struggling with the basic issue of trust — in our government, our institutions, our health care system. We need our neighbors, we need our local community to offer stability in an unstable world.

Another reason for my move to the deck is that I am looking for a new way of living. I believe we are all being called upon to do so in this time of the “Great Turning.” According to Joanna Macy, environmental activist, author and scholar, the Great Turning is the essential adventure of our time. Moving from the industrial growth society to a life-sustaining civilization.

That’s the macrocosm idea. The microcosm idea begs the question, how does one cultivate this way of life?

The way I have chosen to make this inquiry is by stepping closer. Moving in with the chipmunks in the stone wall. Sitting for an hour doing nothing but watching squirrels leap from branch to branch. Allowing the sun’s first rays to greet my eyes to set my circadian rhythm. At day’s end, finding the perfect spot to watch the sunset beam through the evergreens. And later, the harvest moon in her splendor, round and glowing with promise, providing the last of the many charms of living on the deck.

This intimacy with nature is not as accessible to the domicile dweller. Why do I need this? I believe it has something to do with silence and transcendence. My indoor life seems a constant buzz of machines that do my dishes, wash my clothes and ding when my dinner is done.

And, although the blue jay call and the crickets in the evening fill the air with sound, it is a harmony that allows the melody of my mind to still.

In my time outdoors, which will be over soon in November, after 70 days, I feel I am waiting. Waiting for the answer to the question, “How will I live my life?”

Part of many of the world’s wisdom traditions is the notion of “waiting.” I like this from Psalms, “my soul waits, more than the watchman for morning.” And this from the Tao Te Ching, “when there is silence, one finds the anchor of the universe within oneself.”

The book I have been reading on the deck, “Ways of Being,” by James Bridle, has me looking at machines with a bit more of a generous attitude than before, since his thesis is that we are “all in this together.”

Bridle says that the plants, animals and natural systems reveal a mysterious complexity and agency that we can learn from just as we can learn from our technologies — as long as we see intelligence in all that was created as part of nature and all that is being created by us.

There is one last outdoor project before the winter winds start to blow. My husband and I, with help from a landscaper, are reclaiming the upper portion of our backyard where we will build a platform for my teepee. I look forward to a cozy heated tent, and extending my outdoor time by 8 hours!

Now is the time, dear reader, to let me know if you would like to come to my deck for a discussion of “Ways of Being.” You will then get to visit the teepee tent! It will take place in November. There is no bad weather only bad gear. Dress warmly. There will be a fire.