Simply the Best

Dreaming of my most beloved thin place

There is a place in the mountains I know like my most cherished dream. The air is clear and overcome with the scent of lavender and the sound of something like Heaven: laughter and silence and work and communion. Warms hands grasped around a table so perfectly circular you can see everyone you love all at once.

My little sister is working here, at Windy Gap, a Young Life camp, all summer, and last week my mom and I took the day off to visit her. Pure magic. It was my five year old shadow catching up to me for just a moment to remind me how sweet it is to be in the sunshine at camp. How delightful it is to experience the ordinary miracle of beholding another human, with your very own eyes and the only distraction being the particular shade of green trees turn when a June sun hits them just so. I can think of little else, and I just keep wondering why on earth we left.

Windy Gap is so perfectly my favorite place on earth. The Lord has been there — with me, with my family, with a multitude of faces I’ll never even know. That such a place can mean so many big things to so many people. God really has been so immensely kind to us, to let us linger in the places He draws near.

I can’t help but be reminded of my most beloved quote from dearly loved Jellicoe Road. The one about belonging, the one that goes like, “A home to come back to every day of their lives. Where they would all belong or long to be.” And to be perfectly, unironically, horribly romantic, I suppose we left Windy Gap so we could come back.

Also — I have been dwelling on what simple means. I’m going to law school in the fall, which does not feel simple. I’m moving away from my parents, which again, does not feel simple. I look around my spaces and see so many superfluous things, when all my heart is calling for is clean sheets; a single vase of flowers on a table with a spot saved just for you; a run with my dog and a library nearby; a place I am not alone in, even and especially when it seems like I ought to be.

Maybe I will arrive there someday. When I do, I hope there is a new dream on the horizon of my heart. A new invitation to walk even nearer still.

Until then!

xx

“Here is how I spend my days now. I live in a beautiful place. I sleep in a beautiful bed. I eat beautiful food. I go for walks through beautiful places. I care for people deeply... I cry easily, from pain and pleasure, and I don’t apologize for that. In the mornings I step outside and I’m thankful for another day. It took me many years to arrive at such a life.” Eileen, Ottessa Moshfegh