Home: the Place You're From, or the Place You Seek?

This is our eternal question.

I have been "at home" here in my studio at Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts for nearly two weeks.  It has been my "home away from home on the range." A writing refuge that has seen me add more good pages to my manuscript that i have managed to create in nearly a year. I've  a few hundred more to go, at least.  Then there will be the dammed re-write.

From my window, I can stare out to rocky high cliffs, and between them and me flows Brush creek, and between the creek and me a wide expanse of mud season, and a layer of trees. Their tips are just beginning to turn the faintest green. Spring is trying to arrive. But it goes more slowly, here, probably because 60 MPH winds tend to keep things nippy. Today hourseback riders and hikers have passed my studio windows, as I try to get a few more hours of writing in before going home to Denver.

Last week we discovered that a stay at Brush Creek is apparently not complete without a visit to the Saratoga version of heaven; the local taxidermy shop.  I found a few friends.

On Wednesday, a few of us took a trek up the trails through the snow to the high yurts.

Specifically we trekked on past the first yurt area higher to Jim's Yurt. It sits in a wooded clearing and is full of dead animals, quite spectacularly preserved, including an albino moose. More about the moose when I can find the picture. 

We trailed moose tracks to reach that yurt. It seemed to be a wounded moose, because we spotted what looked like blood drops all along the route. How wounded, we could not exactly tell. It could be that he has just taken a wrong turn and run into a tree and had a bloody nose. At any rate, we only saw the tracks, not the moose. It did spark discussion of just exactly what would go into a drink called the "wounded moose." Several recipes were developed.

Home.

Last night at our farewell bonfire, we watched the full moon plus one day rise over the highest rocks of the cliffs.  It was after 11:00 pm - early by our hours here, where we begin writing at 8:00 am and often go for 11-14 hours, with breaks for food. This has felt like a writer's home; a place where the rhythm of creativity is respected and that which is being created is honored. And where else can a person feel most at home than in a place where who you really are is known and understood?

Long ago I decided that the definition of home probably lies at the core of Salt, Light & Life.  I think I was right.