In my lifetime, I have lived in these places: Providence, Atlantic City, New York City, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Boston, Dallas, Baltimore, Montclair, N.J., Jackson, N.Y., and West Hebron, N.Y., shown above at the end of today’s storm. I have spent time in many other places, some overseas. Providence is my birthplace, thus my hometown. I left there when I was 16, and have not returned since.

I moved to this farm in 2003, and more than any other place I have lived, this seems like home to me. I have memories here, connections. I found my real work here, learned to love a farm here, fell in love here, been productive here, became a photographer here, made great friends here. Yet at the same time I never fool myself into thinking I really belong here, not in some ways. When you move to a place like this in your 50’s, you are becoming something of a refugee, at home nowhere in the classic sense. You will ever be accepted as long, always outside the circles that form life anywhere.  I  That is okay with me. I love it here, and I accept my outsiderness as a comfortable reality for me, a choice in so many ways. I could have stayed put in one of those interesting places.But I couldn’t, not then.

I can now. We briefly flirted with selling the farm, but it is off the market. Inso far as any place is home for me, this is it. I am at peace here. I love the people here, and the beauty of it. I love the struggling agricultural core, and the many artists and creatives who came her to do their work and buy cheap houses and be left in peace. It is a gentle place in so many ways. It is a poor place. It is a beautiful place, the hills and light fuel to the many artists in these hills.

Finally, I think, I have rooted. I am home. It feels good. Freud wrote that human beings must balance their lives in order to find some measure of peace and happiness. I think that is so. Love. Work. Beauty. The Natural World. Friends. Passion.