We will be leaving Bedlam Farm soon, and it will be well cared for. It’s been on the market for nearly a year, and has not yet sold, a surprise to me, and I admit, one that hurts a bit – I take the farm very personally. I know it will sell, and I know there is someone out there who loves it and will live it one day, perhaps soon. It was sobering to show the house, and not easy. It is exhilarating to be moving, but that is not easy either. Bedlam Farm is especially beautiful in the fall. We will have people in the house and caretaking the property and I have begun the change-of-address process, reality coming to the fore.

I would be dishonest if I did not admit to being sad. I have been here for nearly 10 years, most of them by myself. Maria has altered the chemistry of my life and it seems very right for us to be moving. I will not be fully at peace until someone buys this place who loves it – I wrote eight books here and changed my life here. Orson is at the top of the hill, Izzy buried in the garden, Rose’s ashes scattered in the pole barn. My blood is in the ground. Sunday we will move the donkeys to the new farm, and a bed as well. Within two weeks we hope to be living in the new farm, donkeys, sheep, chickens, dogs, barn cats and us.

No doubt, I am breaking the rules again, moving in this way. As long as you are dancing, writes the poet Mary Oliver, you can break the rules.