The House on the Hill

You know in therapy how they tell you to take five deep breaths and visualize your happy place where Jesus will meet with you? I go to Maine. Specifically this house at the top of a grassy hill near the north end of the island where the ocean is visible from both sides of the road. You feel like you’re straddling the ocean, holding back the waters like Moses and the Red Sea. Not as many people drive on this end and if they do, they don’t slow down. 

I’ve never seen anyone go in this house before. Two posts frame a long dirt driveway leading up to the top of the meadow. The house is classic New England. The long white wooden shingles outline a black heavy door. Windows line the side facing the road, beneath the road sits a small harbor and beyond that, the ocean. 

The first time I remember seeing the house I was in high school. It was the first summer I had my license and could roam freely on the island. I’d asked to go to the store to pick up the paper, but really I just wanted to drive a loop of the place. I’d dreamt of getting in the car and roaming freely on the 14 mile stretch since I was ten-years-old. The summer before I’d been so eager to explore on my own, I’d attempted to ride my bike to sailing camp—a breezy 8 mile bike ride there and back. Luckily rain spoiled my attempt before it began. 

By the time I was twenty I dreamed of owning the house. Before this summer, I was too pre-occupied with boys and the possibility of buying a jeep to even fathom the idea of buying a home someday. At twenty the world was in the sweet mental spot of feeling available and acquirable. That home on the hill was my dream wedding, I’d vow my life to that haven in the ocean. 

I’ve gotten older and while I still roam Zillow anytime insomnia hits, I’m far more likely to check the non ocean-front homes, hoping to find a foreclosed roadside island shack I can possibly buy by the time I turn forty.

Even if I do, I think I’ll still be sitting on the front stoop of the house on the hill talking to Jesus. Isn’t that the reality of this temporary home thing though? 

Due to the nature of my work currently in a residential home, I lead a lot of young women through the visualization exercise on the reg. As I count them down from 5, I often wonder where they are. I don’t make them tell me. I always feel like it’ll break some secret they have between themselves and Jesus. I don’t wanna spoil their secret hide out. 

I’m not sure if I’ll ever sit on the stoop of the house on the knoll. But maybe the magic in escaping there is I haven’t been there yet? What is the hope of heaven if I had been there and it feels like everywhere else? I’m most assured that it won’t because I have yet to make it there.