The Chameleon Mouse ponders her nest

Yes, kids, it's time for another adventure of the Chameleon Mouse! So settle in with a glass of something that makes you happy to drink, and sip away while we check in with our heroine. When we left her last, she was pondering what would be on the other side of that impending calendar page-turning. And as you all know, sometimes looking back can help you to look forward:

... 650 square feet, is what it was. The 'garden' apartment (read: half-basement) in a victorian row house in Washington, DC. (Barely out of shrapnel-scatter distance from the White House, she joked.) With original wooden floors, a teensy tiny (mouse-sized!) fireplace and fantabulous dentil molding, coated with years worth of paint and stories. It was a stopping point, a time-biding rental halfway between the suburban planned-community condo (that she had sold when the market was on the upswing) and the swanky urban loft with a floating bedroom and 12' ceilings and a full glass wall overlooking the hip urban restaurant district.

For two years, our mouse lived in that garden-basement, and planned every detail of that new condo: picked out the granite countertops, the slate tile in the glass-half-walled shower, the track lighting to showcase the artwork just-so on the walls, paid extra for the bamboo floor in the bedroom.

And yet, a different adventure pulled her away. By the time she closed on the swanky urban new-build condo that she had waited 2 1/2 years for ... her life was 5,000 miles away on a Tuscan hilltop. Not because it had always been her dream ... but rather, opportunity had knocked, and she answered.

The city mouse became a country mouse, almost overnight. And the house she lives in today, 350 years old, is a lifetime away from the swanky urban condo that she actually owns. And our chameleon is strangely comfortable in both. Two major moves in five years: suburbia to urban, urban to rural... during which our mouse's life has whittled itself down to only thirteen boxes. And it is fascinating that so many of the things that were in those boxes coming from the US to Italy will not be the same things that leave here. No, these 20 months have changed our mouse, irretrievably.

A glance around the farmhouse today reveals much about her character:

Utilitarian and well-made cooking implements, close at hand in a kitchen made to cook in. Pots and pans hanging from the ceiling, collections of graters and knives, wooden spoons and cutting boards at the ready.

Expensive, luxurious bedsheets and giant, plush bathtowels.

A small but meaningful collection of books.

Black and white photography and etchings, of places she has traveled.

Boxes and boxes of spare wine glasses and candles; running out of either is tantamount to sacrilege.

Photographs of friends; memories of laughter and experiences and a slightly-disturbing chronology of a lifetime of hairstyles.

Her accessory weaknesses: a few too many pairs of strappy shoes, silver bracelets, and an ever-growing collection of Italian scarves.

Seven pairs of garden and work gloves, and two pairs of workboots.

Bagfuls of suits and 'fussy corporate clothes' and handbags of varying colors, ready to be donated to friends or charity.

An entire shelf of travel maps and guidebooks, two computers.

Yes, a glance around this farmhouse reveals that our chameleon mouse has almost gotten her life down to a size sufficient that she could toss it in a knapsack on a moment's notice and hit the road with it: today, she owns just the things that really matter. We all know that too much baggage prevents mice - particularly of the chameleon variety - from being able to jump when life beckons.

And as she sits, staring at 2007 on the calendar ... she ponders the concept of home:

'home is not a place, it is people.' (L.M. Bujold)

'wherever I lay my hat, that's my home.' (Marvin Gaye) (Paul Young)

'home is where the heart is' (general wisdom)

And she straightens up and looks closely and carefully at her reflection in the antique mirror. When it comes right down to it, her clear, starburst-flecked green eyes cannot lie to her.

Riddle me this, Mouse: If you don't want to be the type of mouse that's always on the roam... then is your hat today really laid where your heart is?

The chameleon mouse

UBlend mused about 'his' version of the witch on the forest path (which sounded suspiciously something like a character in the Devil Wears Prada ... a black leather-clad gorgeous platinum blonde sipping a martini... wait, UBlend, you have me confused with Virgin Blogger!!!)

But, yes, that reminded me that there IS this crazy dichotomy in my life:

I am equal parts urban chic, globetrotting, corporate, martini-sipping professional, and bluejean-and-bandanna-wearing, firewood stacking, simple-pasta-making, local-wine-sipping, hiking in the hills, wilderness girl. Part country mouse, part city mouse, as the fable goes.

18 months ago this city mouse moved to the country, a hilltop in the middle of nowhere - where I neither spoke the language nor knew another person - not at all certain what I would find. And I was as shocked-to-my-socks as much as anyone that what I found was a part of my soul, one that had been missing for a long time. And with that piece in place, my spirit is truly at peace; perhaps for the first time in my adult life. Sometimes, you don't know exactly what's not right until a missing piece arrives and nestles in, making itself quite at home in your heart: Stealthy, how life sneaks up on you while you're making other plans.

And as my giant Tuscan fireplace crackles behind me, and my neighbor's delicious 1.80-a-liter 'table wine' Chianti sloshes in my glass, I know without a doubt that the country life suits me quite well, better than I myself could have ever even expected. I did 'come to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,' and that, I am. There is an inexplicable comfort that I have found here in the deliberateness and purposefulness of life, as both a stranger and a local simultaneously on this hilltop. And it has changed me, forever. This "pioneerwoman" side of me shocks the hell out of my DC corporate friends, I imagine, who wouldn't recognize me in my old barn coat, workboots, and leather gloves.

No, I haven't lost my taste for swanky martinis and sassy high-heeled shoes, and I do still love a fabulous day at the spa... or being waited on hand-and-foot at a 5-star resort. Except, well... that was usually someone else's money and influence, never my own. And I have to admit, it all seemed a little hollow, even then.

Here, in the countryside, it's just me. My own sweat and tears. My own kindness and energies. My own generosity of spirit, my own honesty with myself. My own cleverness or fortitude or stupidity. My own fear and anger. My own planning - or failure to do so, self-reliance is equal parts frustrating and rewarding. My own ability to learn to ask for help, to know where resources can be found and use them wisely. The life lessons here are astounding, when you can be still enough to listen to them. Once I 'got over myself' and stripped away the years of well-hardened veneers that prevent connection; opening myself to lessons and possibility.

It's amazing what you can hear when there's no background noise of chaos.

I find now that I am a chameleon of sorts - a little bit country mouse, and a little bit city mouse. I know it is in-between where my "disagio" (imbalance) arises: I am NOT, by any measure, a suburbanite mouse (not that there's anything WRONG with that!)

And so I stare down the path into the unknown: the daunting annual page-turning on the calendar, and I can't help but wonder ...

Where will our heroine mouse's next adventure lead?
(And more importantly, what will she be wearing?!?!)
Can she find a life that will balance the two?
Is she brave enough to try??
Is there a trap ahead?
Does she find another like-minded mouse?

The crystal ball is foggy ... (or maybe that's the wine talking?)

Tune in next week - (same bat-time, same bat-channel,) for more Adventures of the Chameleon Mouse!

Yes, 2007 should be veeeeeery interesting. There's a vicious wind whipping the hilltop tonight. I suspect it's the wind of change.