My friend Linda used to say, “it’s all perfect.” It took me a long time to understand what she meant. I think I’m starting to, and I think it has very little to do with location and much more to do with how you love the land sprawled out in front of you.
Sometimes I long for the home I grew up in. I get nostalgic for the New York suburbs and the wildness of my youth. I spent 35 years honing my skills of becoming, walking on those back roads and getting lost on old farms for hours at a time. Fading down a well-worn dirt path amidst tulip trees and maples only to find my way back to myself at the end of a long day.
Now I live in the West which is a very different landscape that holds very different promise. I’m raising my own child and watching where she sources her wildness from. The passage of time is a funny thing – brilliant and melancholy all in one.
The West has been kind to me in many ways. Occasionally, dropping a feather near my footpath. My collection of feathers from the West is stunning with bright orange gifts from the Northern Flicker and striped owl feathers that have found their way to me resting in bushels of sage outside my door. I am lucky to live on a piece of land that has enough sage to ignite the smell of a fiery western midsummer sunset.
The East has given me the gift of the changing leaves. Autumnal gifts mostly but a bouquet of rainbows and the reminder that all things will eventually pass.
I love both parts of my life and both chapters equally. I love the strength that I thought the first chapter held, getting my sea legs as an individual and finding my place as an artist in this world. I’m in awe of the strength the next chapter tested. Both intertwined and necessary.
My friend Linda used to say, “it’s all perfect.” It took me a long time to understand what she meant. I think I’m starting to, and I think it has very little to do with location and much more to do with how you love the land sprawled out in front of you.
