Always Coming Home

So we arrived at The Ranch last night.

I treated myself to a walk this morning. The woods were quiet, the quiet of mountains with nothing be trees and wind around them. The loudest noise was the crunch of my feet on the road as I walked towards the main road. I did hear the brief sound of two cars driving by - this constituted the rush hour for the day.

Coming back, one can almost hear the sunlight falling on the leaves and needles. The cattle in what was once (and now is again) the upper meadow looked at me curiously as I tromped past, a stranger outside of the usual rounds of owners and parents that they see. In the distance a flock of young tom turkeys, picking their way through the meadow as a disparate group of youth pick their way through the mall, slowly sauntered along picking at the occasional early morning grasshopper or other insect that failed to get out of their way.

It is high summer here now; the green of spring is long gone except for the needles of the pines and cedars that dot the landscape. The spring grasses are dry brown and cut short, their blandness only interrupted by small yellow flowers that seem to litter the area in front of the house.

There is a sense - I cannot truly define it - a sense of being at peace, of being home in a way that anywhere else does not fully fulfill for me. This place, nestled high in the mountains and overlooked except for those who know that it is here, radiates a sense of grounding and rightness that I cannot find anywhere else.

This is home.