Homing In, Pigeon Coops at Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos, NM, June 28, 2008, photo © 2008 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
When Jim and I started dating he wanted to take me to two places. One was the cabin his grandparents built in the 1940s, in the Pecos Mountains. The other place was the Rio Grande Pyramid in Southwestern Colorado — at 13,821 feet above sea level, source waters of the Rio Grande.
Within our first two months together, we went to both. They gave me a sense of who Jim is in his core — wilderness, mountains and valleys, creeks and rivers, building things by hand.
This past weekend in Taos, then, it is no surprise that I find myself walking with my daughters one morning up the long lane to the Mabel Dodge Luhan House.
“Where are we going, Mom?” they ask.
“You’ll see.”
We reach the uneven flagstone patio in front of the house. Dee says she loves the roughness of the stones. She spies a big rock wheel laid on its side into the walkway and stands in its center, surveying all around her.
“Papa Leo helped lay these stones,” I tell her.
“He did?!” Her eyes are wide.
My father worked one summer at this place. Mabel herself was gone, but an English author hired Dad to help put in the flagstone. Dad was 16 or 17 years old, scrawny and not a good laborer. He’s told me the author, whose name he thought to be Henry James or James Henry, was not pleased with his work. (I need to do more research on who this writer might have been. Author Henry James died just about the time Mabel Dodge arrived in Taos, so it couldn’t have been him.)
The next morning I return to Mabel Dodge Luhan House with the girls and Jim in tow. I lead them into the front door, show them the living room and dining room, point out the magical door leading to the library. It’s shaped liked a canoe that’s been sawed in half, the tip at the top. Jim and I each stoop to go through the doorway. Dee and Em stand beneath it, looking up at the strange arch. The door is made just for them.
Jumping Jack Wagon, Jumping Jack pansies at Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos, NM, June 28, 2008, photo © 2008 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
Homing in. We hold our homes in our hearts. I live in the Rio Grande Valley, next to the cottonwoods and the muddy river. This will always be more than just a place to live.
Parts of Northern New Mexico — Taos, Morada Lane and Mabel’s house, Costilla, Cimarron, maybe even the dying and not very attractive town of Raton — these are homes I will always hold inside me.
What places do you call home?
-related to posts Sitting In Solidarity, Mabel’s Dining Room, and WRITING TOPIC – A PLACE TO STAND.
Ahhh…I walked with you everywhere you described at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House. It’s another home to many of us who have written there in silence. That’s so great that your father worked there (though it sounds like his employer didn’t give him high marks).
My homes? Minneapolis, farm country in Minnesota, and my holy places in South Dakota. Like you, ybonesy, places that will always be more than geographic spots.
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I am building a home with my wife here in Venezuela, but my heart is always in New Mexico. I think about it almost daily.
Holy places?
– Almost anywhere when riding my bike.
– Big Bend country (Texas)
– The Gila (southwest New Mexico)
– Navajo country (4-corners)
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lovely post–home seems to be the place we just left–no matter how long ago that was. In this case, the ozark hills.
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I have been asking the question about where “home” is for me since my mother’s death in February. I would always refer to St. Joseph as home even though I had no desire to ever live there again. It was where my mother lived so it was home. I have never had a “home” since I left her house. Now I am asking myself that question a lot, “Where is my home?” Thanks for asking the question. I’ll think a little more on it and let you know.
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Nice post, yb. Mabel’s is a place I love and is comfortable like home to me in it’s familiarity. The ocean shore is, too.
I grew-up in greater Chicagoland, lived in Des Moines through college and now in Cheyenne for over 30 years, but my heart’s home is in northern Wisconsin on Cable Lake. I’ve spent time there every year of my life (but one, with a new job) and it never ceases to fill me with the absolute wonder and joy of being fully immersed in nature.
It was in Cable that I took my first haiku walks after reading Clark Strand’s “Seeds from a Birch Tree.” I really learned about haiku there, in a deep way. I paddled out on the lake in my kayak with my journal, day and night, to catch the beauty around me in 17 syllables. I think of Cable Lake as “haiku heaven.”
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Cable Lake sounds magical, breathepeace. Do you have a spot you always stay at there? Also, I’d love to see some of your haiku from there. Perhaps you can post some in comments if so moved.
Bob, your comment makes me think about whether “home” can exist without that deeper connection than what lies on the surface. And, if the place you’ve lived all those years really isn’t “home,” does that free you to move anywhere?
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Teri, what about small towns in general? Is someone who is comfortable in rural areas and small towns in one geography comfortable in most any small town?
I just remembered, I had a conversation with people at work about feeling “home.” Two of us felt rooted and at home where we were, and two felt they’d not yet found home. The latter two had either recently moved or were in the process of moving. I’ve been thinking about “home” since.
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MM, about your homes and holy places, I wonder about the contrasts between water and land. If you’re in NM, do you long for the ocean or your kayak? You didn’t mention ocean or kayak, so maybe this isn’t something that happens. Can one grow a fondness for large bodies of water (like acquired taste)?
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home seems to be the place we just left–no matter how long ago that was.
This is like a koan. Thanks.
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ybonesy, reading this post about Mabel’s is like coming home for me. It’s amazing how much energy flows through that place from the town of Taos, from Taos Mountain, from the people who live there, from all the artists and writers who were (and are) drawn to Taos as home.
And I love this:
My father worked one summer at this place. Mabel herself was gone, but an English author hired Dad to help put in the flagstone.
I don’t think I knew that about your father. When did he share that with you? Was it before you ever went to a writing retreat at Mabel’s? Or is it a piece of family history that you found out early in your life? Wonderful that you get to pass that connection on to your daughters. It sounds like they really appreciated it, too.
I’ve been thinking of “home” a lot lately, too, as I prepare to head back down to Georgia in a few weeks. Georgia is my childhood home, my roots. It is the place that molded me. My family history is there and it will always be close to me. But my present day life is very rooted in Minnesota. And over the last 24 years, I have grown to love it here.
Missoula, Montana has also been a dear home to me, another chapter in my life. A place that accepted me for exactly who I was. And I will never forget what the mountains and friends there taught me in the tumultuous decade of my 20’s.
New Mexico is a spiritual home to me. Over the last 20 years, I have been to many places in New Mexico — camped on and walked the land, visited natural hotsprings and places where writers and artists worked, walked at Ghost Ranch, photographed, sat in silence, written, and studied with a mentor there. It is a place that grounds me and feeds my creative soul.
And I also met you there, ybonesy. And I have much gratitude for that. New Mexico makes a home in my heart.
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This is Part II of my comment on “Home.” In my teens, I lived in Pennsylvania. And that is where most of my family still lives. There is a concurrent thread running between me and Central Pennsylvania at all times. Right from my heart to every one of my family members there. I love them dearly. I find a different kind of home there, a place I feel safe.
The land and mountains of Pennsylvania are beautiful, some of the most striking country I’ve ever been in on the East Coast. But I’ve never felt the same connection to the land there as I have out West. In Minnesota, too, I have come to love the plains. But when it comes to the deep solid earth of a place — I love it most Out West with the mountains.
ybonesy, a couple of other things – the photos are great. It’s fun to think you were walking in those places last weekend.
I’d also like to know more about the author your dad met. I wonder who it was? And what else he remembers about that. So curious.
Lastly, I was thinking about Bob’s comment. And wondering if “home” can be a point in time when we are travelling, a place on the road. Are people who are wanderers home when they are moving? And for people who don’t feel at home where they grew up — does it mean they haven’t found the home that connects to their heart yet? Or that they haven’t yet accepted a place they have lived all their lives as home?
These are all questions I have wandering around inside. I don’t have answers. Only more questions.
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QM, I learned this about my dad several years back when I was attending a workshop in early Nov. I called to wish my dad a happy birthday, since I was gone for it, and when I told him where I was, he told me he had worked there one summer. Since learning that, we’ve talked more about it. I have tried to do some research on who the author was, but I don’t think I’ll learn more until I read Mabel’s autobiography. Or at least I’m hoping I might learn more by doing so.
I liked reading about all the places that are home to you. Each one resonates for a different reason. This about Missoula stood out in particular: A place that accepted me for exactly who I was.
The green of Pennsylvania seems to be a pervasive theme these days. I’ve seen photos on flikr and posts about Pennsylvania, it seems. I don’t think I really know that depth of green. I’ve never been there, but it’s clear to me that it’s way beyond the greenest green I’ve seen here. I’d like to see it for myself.
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I am three days away from celebrating the 23rd anniversary of my arrival in Pennsylvania as a resident. I’ve lived here longer than any other place, over a third of my life. It has earned a place in my heart. I live in the Pittsburgh area which is quite hilly. Our local slogan is “You can’t get there from here.” We are fortunate to have a home on the edge of a development, on a steep slope, and we have woods all around us, so I’m intimately familiar with that intense green.
Those in western states who are blessed with evergreen forests should rejoice in their year-round color. Our intense green lasts only half the year. For five months of each year we must content ourselves with bare branches to remind us of the splendor that once was and will yet be again.
It reminds me of the nursery rhyme about the little girl with the little curl, right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very very good, and when she was bad, she was horrid.
We have a little forest, right in the middle of our summer. When it is green, it is vey very green, and when it is cold, it is horrid!
I’ll always miss the pine-covered slopes around Los Alamos, even though people are increasingly vocal about the toxicity of that area. To me, it’s home, beautiful and sacred. I’m so sad about the toxic treatment the land has suffered. I pray for its healing.
I also miss the denser evergreens of the Pacific Northwest. Another home of my heart.
Isn’t it wonderful that hearts can expand to include many homes just as they expand to include any number of family members and friends?!
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Ybonesy,
I haven’t paddled in a while…mainly due to organization and choppy seas. I hope to get out in the next few days. But need to take care of home maintenance stuff first.
I like the sea. On my bike rides, I always stop and admire it. I like how it changes. The colors are really incredible…especially when in the kayak since you are only about 2 ft from it. It has this really neat translucent color or turquoise or bluish-green.
We are thinking about getting a small power boat just to dink around in it. A little faster than the kayak.
One thing I enjoy about NM and the West in general is it is a lot like an ocean to me, but my bicycle is my vehicle to get around in. Again, I stop and admire the places I am at.
MM
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ritergal, you moved to PA about the same time I moved to MN and have been there about as long. Strange to think about. Sounds like you don’t like the winters there. I used to love them. When we moved to PA from GA, I was in heaven when it snowed. I just loved it. The winters in PA aren’t as harsh as they are here in MN, but they can be close!
I haven’t spent much time in Pittsburgh, only driven through and by on the way to Central PA. Liz took one road trip with me to PA and we stopped at Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright’s place at Mill Run near Pittsburgh. Beautiful.
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I’d love to see Mill Run, QM.
Hey ritergal, I will always think of you as living in Los Alamos and Albuquerque. In fact, I was so glad to see you talk about Pittsburgh, PA, because if I were to be asked where you lived, I wouldn’t have known. It’s interesting that as someone who writes memoir, what I know about you most has to do with your childhood.
MM, I’ve heard this before, about the wide expanse similarity of NM or places out West and the ocean. Odd, no? It makes sense; it’s just one of those things that delights me because they’re also opposite.
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