Paradox of Place, part deux

I love the word "center." My writing place is my center, the unchanging (well, sometimes I vacuum) center of a too-susceptible-to-changing world. My notebook is the center of my center.

I think one of the reasons I love visiting historic homes--especially the homes of writers and artists--is because I like to glimpse the outward evidence of that creative center. Edith Wharton's library at The Mount in Lenox, Massachusetts. Emily Dickinson's room in her Amherst house. Thomas Cole's studio in Catskill, New York. These are places that inspire me. I love the light, the gardens, the trees, the stuff of everyday life around the center of extraordinary creation.

To find and re-find, fine and re-fine, one's center is a daily practice.

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first
snow
the
outlines
of
the
world
we
knew

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