The Sanity Project
By Michael Erlewine
That would just be the process of living life in this day and age, as the world whirls around me and politics continues as crazy as can be. I do my best to just focus on where I am, my family and friends and try not to let politics get under my skin, yet that is not easy.
We are positioned right in the middle of Michigan’s lower peninsula and to the left of center but still about an hour from Lake Michigan. It’s a pleasant drive to Traverse City (1.5 hours), a not-too-bad drive to Lansing (2 hours), and a rather long drive to Ann Arbor and Canton (about 3 hours). These are the cities where our kids live.
It’s great when all the kids come to visit and we have a family get-together. We can sleep 14 people, plus many more could sleep in our large shrine building. Those days are mostly gone for that kind of traffic.
The hard news is that it is not easy for us to be with our kids and they are too busy with life to get here often. The good news is that we have clean air, clean water, and not too much influx from the big cities.
Big Rapids, where we live, is a small town on the highway between Grand Rapids and Cadillac Michigan. We are a mile or so from 900,000 acres of the Manistee National Forest. We have loads of lakes and innumerable marshlands.
As to things to do here, I’ve never worried about that since I always have too many things to do already, but the lack of stuff to do here means my kids prefer to live elsewhere. We have tried for six years to find a home near at least one of them, but since property has skyrocketed over the last ten years, we are caught in all of that, the scarcity of homes for sale, the rising prices, and the uncertainty of the markets.
We have ended up being banished to where we are, our home for 46 years here in Big Rapids, Michigan. We are like the story of Br-er Rabbit in the Uncle Remus Tales, pleading “Please don’t throw me into the briar patch,” which is where he wants to live.
Of course, it could be worse, and we are very comfortable here with lots of room and storage, just no kids or grandkids anywhere nearby. That’s not how we imagined growing old would be like.
And so…. Given our situation, we are turning our attention to maintaining and caring for our home and the dharma center next door. With everything aging, both ourselves and our property, we are going to need some help to keep up with what has to be kept up. We are also working on that.
[ChatGPT graphic prompted by me.]
EMAIL Michael@Erlewine.net Note: If you would like to have access to other free books, articles, and videos on these topics, here are the links: StarTypes.com.
As Bodhicitta is so precious,
May those without it now create it,
May those who have it not destroy it,
And may it ever grow and flourish.