Melancholy

I'm taking the liberty of paraphrasing a quote from the French Writer, Anatole France:

All changes, ever the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind is part of ourselves; we must let go of something before we can move on to something else.

While going through and discarding stuff in the files about building this house, I felt this melancholy. Working with our architect was such a creative experience. Maybe because the outside skin of the house is metal (galvalume) I feel like we have created more than just a house, we have created a sculpture that changes as you move aound it, as the light changes. I love the shape and angles, the way the grid over the patio creates moving shadows across the patio and the sides of the house. The design makes the gardens an important element around the house and the gardens become an extension of the inside of the house.

I love this house. So a few waves of melancholy have washed over me. But by letting go and leaving this part of me behind, I'm opening the door to living full time in another culture and I am definitely opening the door to an equally wonderful experience of building another house at some point in the future.