Its Not All Roses

This post is not the easiest one to make on a night like this, with fresh snow coming down and people to laugh and talk with, but a few of you have commented that life here seems idyllic and I thought I might talk a bit about the realities of living in a remote community in the mountains.

Life here, and everywhere, is what you make of it. Art and I have chosen to give 110% here at Holden to get the 80% of pure joy that we show you here in our blog. Most of the time we ignore the negative or make do with what we have here. We find that we are often surprised with how we adapt or how what we thought was important really is not. That said, below is a partial list of some of the realities of our life here.

Life in community - living closely with other people. Five of us live in this chalet and one is only 4 months old. Living upstairs we hear much of what goes on downstairs. Babies cry and don't sleep through the night. Younger people come and go at much later times that we do, but we also tend to be up and at it long before they would like as well. We also live right next to the best sledding hill you will ever see in your life. Every once in a while a 2am sledding group will decide to scream their way down the hill. Yes we have quiet hours but really....

Life with power outages - Holden generates its electrical power via a small stream that flows down a mountain. There are no power lines to the outside world and our utility team consists of 3 people. The power goes out here frequently, sometimes daily and sometimes for hours at a time. We live with flashlights in every coat pocket and by every bed. Yesterday an avalanche came down and covered the stream. We had to wait for the water to refind its way down its rocky path and back into our generator. We had no idea if it would be 20 minutes or 12 hours.

Life with limited power - Some very talented man wrote a computer program that gives power to the things in the village that need it when they need it. For example, most of the hot water is diverted to the kitchen after dinner so we can wash the dishes. My Chalet gets power to its hot water tank from midnight to 4 am. That means that all of us in Chalet 14 get one tank to use during the day. None of us shower every day and we don't feel dirty nor miss our daily shower. We also don't use our clothes dryers in the winter, but it is so dry here that a full load on a drying rack is dry in 3 hours.

Life with a lot of snow - Overnight tonight we should get about 15 to 20 inches of snow. This means that my first task of the morning will to put on my snowshoes and begin stomping out the paths that go from building to building. We pound the snow down with our snowshoes into a maze that takes us where we want to go. Each path is carefully placed to not be close to a building to avoid the snow that falls from the roofs or as we say "roofalanches". The roofs are metal but still gather a lot of snow on them before they eventually slide off. Tons of snow smash down to the ground and if anyone is in the way they are no longer alive. So far we have surpassed the 120 inch mark of our winter snow fall. Only 200 inches to go before the big melt.

Living and eating close to others - Both Art and I have been sick this year, sicker than we have been in many years in Ellensburg. We are much closer to people at meals and worship than we are at home. We catch colds and flu and anything else that comes this way. Our immune systems are catching up just like small children do when they enter school.

Life in the cold - Those of you that know me will won't believe this but 60 degrees is a comfortable temperature indoors. Each building here has an alternative heat source, wood mostly but 3 buildings are on diesel fuel for heat. We have had many nights thant fall to the single digits. Somehow (miraculously) our bodies adapt to the cold. We wear warm bulky clothing and many layers but for me, my house is way too warm at 65 degrees and I now prefer about 50 degrees to sleep in. When you are not pulled from the warm to cold with each building you enter, your body adapts and you don't need the heat nor the air conditioning that we have in the outside world.

Working closely with people - Holden is a place of grace. We give much more latitude to people than in a normal work place. Many people come to Holden during times of stress or transition in their lives. Working with people who are new to the concept or who are still finding their way is not always easy. Holden staff consists of many post-college young people who are still not sure where life is leading them. They don't have the skills that Art and I have and at times it can be frustrating (I really do love them all). For example I am missing my 4th pair of scissors from my desk and my best broom was used in a game of "broom ball". What were they thinking!!!! Need I say more?

Each frustration here has given us the chance to grow and change. Each person give us the chance to give grace and patience to others. We are learning so much here but that does not mean that I go to bed happy each night.

God bless you all and thanks for viewing a life a bit differently than you live.