A Million Different Ways

We found an old typewriter in my husband’s granddad’s shed as we were cleaning it out one afternoon. Apparently it had belonged to “Grandpa”, as we called him, back in his earlier days when he worked for the postal service.  The small but heavy piece of equipment didn’t work, but something about it struck me as beautiful and we kept it displayed in our living room in Austin and now in Colorado.

When my mom was in hospice care in my home we had conversations about how she wasn’t ready for “it” to be over. “It” being life here on earth, as if she was potentially leaving somethings left undone. I didn’t put it all together until after she passed, past the funeral, past the burial, past the grieving and all of the hard things that follow. It was the book, The Five Regrets of the Dying, that helped put some things together to give me some insight. The author had walked alongside many, many people in their end of life experiences and, according to her, the number one regret people have as they are facing such a time is this “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

I rummaged through remembered conversations with my mom over the years. She was a beautiful soul saved and changed by grace, a loyal friend and mom, a hard worker, very forgiving, a prayer warrior. She loved to laugh and have coffee and always applied lipstick before entering most public places. And I wish she was here so I could ask her her greatest dream. We never had conversations like that and parts of me are not quite sure she let herself really dream. She was practical, reliable, and got stuff done, but still, were there things she had wanted to try or pursue and didn’t? Don’t get me wrong, she followed after Jesus boldly with a pure and holy passion. But with that, I know there were potentially untapped dreams within her. Big or small. It all has got me wondering if there are untapped dreams within me? Within all of us? Why do we have such a tendency, at times, to put things off?

As I have walked past the vintage typewriter in my living room over and over and over, a word has sparked in my mind that I have tried to brush off. “Write.” Just that word. “Write". And then I, in turn, have countered that word with thoughts of, “but I’m not a writer”, “but who would read it”, and “what if its awful.” Its pretty odd to have a verbal exchange with a mechanical apparatus incapable of speaking, but it does make you pay attention.

What I do know about myself, is writing is a way that I process, and the little I have done of it has always taught me something. Its weird to say that your own words can teach you, but I’m not sure how to word it any other way. And so, in the spirit of hoping to live a life more true to stirrings inside of me, I’m going to write some more. Here. In this little corner of the internet.

I’m not sure my kids or grandkids will ever pull out an old laptop from storage and prop it up in their living room as decor, but I hope that if they do, it will remind them to do more of what stirs within them. Or better yet, through the love and strength I received from my mom and her story, my hope is that I can intentionally pass on the value of doing more of which is true to you and see where it takes you.

So here in this little tab we call The Root House, on our Root Design Company website, there will be some stories. Some may relate to design or food or family or none of the above.

As I thought about the words, The Root House, it all struck me as pretty appropriate. “Root” is defined as the source from which something grows. “House” is defined as a place where people dwell. We are all running our own little root houses growing and dwelling in a million different ways. Hoping encouragement comes from this place to take notice of it.

The ROOT House

The Root House, as we first knew it. At the moment, it is covered in white snow. Looking forward to continuing to make it more of what we envision it to be.

In the fall of 2012, we said yes to a year long work opportunity helping an Austin based Root Design client with the design and renovation of a family lake home she owned in southern Colorado.

The owner had tragically and heartbreakingly lost her husband a couple years prior, about the same time Ben and I had been swept through some devastating trauma in our own lives. As we all learn, the grief process lasts as long as it lasts. It comes in waves and is messy, and in our own times of brokenness, I can remember clinging to the words of a Chris Tomlin song that said“healing waters rise around us.” Those words became our mantra when healing seemed impossible. "Healing waters rise around us."

Don’t be deceived by this picture. Just minutes before, the little guy up front had ripped off his sweater and the button shirt under it, proclaiming he was “done”. He cried. We were not looking at him adoringly. And somehow we convinced him to put it all back on for a couple more. Then we got this shot and it always makes me smile, because I think “if you only knew.”

Over the course of our marriage, we had spent many vacations traveling to Ben’s family’s cabin on the Rio Grande in South Fork, Colorado, just across Wolf Creek Pass from Pagosa Springs, the place we were about to call home for a period of time.  Still, we knew next to nothing about what we were getting into as we pulled into the quaint little town and passed a sign that read, “Pagosa Springs, home of the Healing Waters.” 

This picture was taken just before we headed back to Austin, after spending our first year together as a family in Pagosa. Again, with the youngest. Always doing his own thing.

Any fears I had suddenly calmed, and I knew we were exactly where we were supposed to be. Our mantra, our prayer, would literally, for a time, be our home. 

A white cargo trailer was hitched on the back of our car as we turned into the gravel driveway of an old blue Victorian house my husband had found for rent on one of his site visits. In the front yard was a picket fence and tall pine trees and, in the back yard, an apple tree and a river. Next door was a park and a winding waterfront trail lined with boulders and natural hot springs, hence the name “healing waters.” The house was located on a street whose name translated to mean “beautiful” and, on Sundays, we walked to a church appropriately known as Grace. We did life there that year with our 9, 7, 5, and 2 year olds, met inspiring people, and, as foreshadowed the day we pulled into town, experienced seemingly impossible soul healing. When it was time to head back to Austin, we worked out a deal to purchase the little river home and turned it into a vacation rental to share with others. The Root House was born.

Some of my favorite things are in this picture. Including the Thankful chalkboard I created just after my mom passed away in 2014. A daily reminder.

Corner nook in our little downstairs bedroom. Aloe plants are my love language,

A lot of thought and time were put into how we could make everything as welcoming and comfortable as our budget would allow, and guest’s compliments to such were our greatest encouragement to keep it all going.  So we did. 

The past few years have brought some amazing Root Design projects, bucket-list adventures, and difficult losses. Loss, being one of the greatest teachers, has a way of breaking you down and breaking you open and breaking you free from self imposed constraints that may be holding you back from pursuing a dream stirring in you. For us, part of the dream, was to come back to the small mountain life for a time again. Not so easily, we relocated Root Design from a downtown Austin studio on 6th street to a downtown Pagosa, riverside barn next door to a park and right beside the blue Victorian we, again, call home. Together, we are redesigning parts of this little house as well as redesigning parts of how we do life. Our transplanted Root Design Company is currently working on collaborative projects in Texas, Colorado, and anywhere else fun. If you want to learn more or have a design project on your horizon, check more out here.

The Root House now welcomes guests in a new way sharing things related to life as we know it.

Found that abandoned Firestone bike on a site visit. Attempted to fix it up for use, but that didn’t last. So now it just hangs on our barn through all the seasons.