"And I forgot how good it feels to be rooted. And to be rooted is not the same thing at all as being tied down. To be rooted is to say, here am I nourished and here will I grow, for I have found a place where every sunrise shows me how to be more than I was yesterday, and I need not wander to feel the wonder of my blessing. And when you are rooted, defending that space ceases to be an obligation or a duty and becomes more of a desire." From Iron Druid Book 7, Shattered by Kevin Hearne.
You might think I am grounded since I have two homes in places I love very much. Or maybe you'd say I am not since I do have those two homes that are both very important to me. But they aren't the only home I have. There is also my dream home. I am unlikely to ever live in my dream home, but maybe it's not bad to have real and dream homes.
on Pinterest-- http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/a2/20/6e/a2206efd5e0ab11d71260cde54b02eab.jpg
I have come across this dream home for real a few times but always for some reason it wasn't possible for me to live there. The photo below was up the South Fork of the John Day River. We had been driving around exploring and there it was-- my dream cabin. It wasn't feasible at the time for us and wasn't for sale.
Last time we were up that way, someone had bought the property, built a newer home in the woods behind it, and the cabin had no one living in it. It looked as though they were letting it deteriorate until it falls down. At one time it had a garden, fruit orchard and real people all right on the banks of the river with the mountains above. Now it's just a memory as are so many other places from my past.
At least I have the photos.
One good thing about writing is, for a little while, you can live wherever you want. It can be somewhere you actually have been or once lived. Maybe you only deeply researched it but you make yourself feel you are there. You imagine its smells and views, know what the soil is like, and then spend the time it takes to write your story as if not just your characters but that you also live there.
The energy of place is not about doing a book, painting or photograph. It's letting that place get under our skin. I have to think the happiest people manage to put together their dream home with their real one :). I've come very close.
For me nature and place are part of my life, which means part of anything I write. Place is an important character. Books that I adore also fit into that with strong sense of place and why it matters, how it impacts the characters. A quote I have claimed for my own is out of Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund.
"Where we choose to be-- we have the power to determine our lives. We cannot reel time backward or forward, but we can take ourselves to the place that defines our being."And you never know, maybe that dream home is yet in my future.
