Avi

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Where I live

Mountain homeLet me describe where I live: It is in Col­orado, in the Rocky Moun­tains, 9,500 feet up. We are sur­round­ed by moun­tains. Look­ing out the front win­dows I can look down Elk Val­ley for about sev­en­ty miles. We are in the mid­dle of a for­est. It is very beau­ti­ful. We are adja­cent to Routt Nation­al For­est, and if you walk due West, you won’t see any­one for a hun­dred miles. Near­est town, Steam­boat Springs, is thir­ty miles away.

The dirt dri­ve­way that leads to our house is three-quar­ters of a mile long and goes most­ly up, steeply, and that includes a hair­pin turn at the bot­tom of the last hill, which some who vis­it often don’t quite make. The pop­u­la­tion of Columbine, as the neigh­bor­hood is called, is, I’m told, thir­teen. I’ve nev­er met them all and the near­est is a mile away.

Iso­lat­ed.

When I describe this to peo­ple they often say: “Iso­lat­ed! Lucky you. How won­der­ful for writing.”

And indeed writ­ers often talk of the need for iso­la­tion. That famous “room of one’s own” and all that.

There is a lot of truth to that.

BUT…when the writ­ing stops, iso­la­tion is not so great.

Speak­ing for myself, I miss con­tact with peo­ple, even the casu­al con­tact, such as when I vis­it my post office (twelve miles away) to pick up mail. As a human being I thrive in cities, where I see peo­ple in their end­less vari­eties, their talk, the way they look. From a writer’s point of view, I need those con­nec­tions. It feeds my imag­i­na­tion, my vocab­u­lary, my sense of place, my sense of interaction.

Speak­ing for myself, this writer must live—in part—beyond my mind.

8 thoughts on “Where I live”

    • It is very beau­ti­ful, very calm, qui­et, and dur­ing the sum­mer one can almost live on the wild flow­ers. As to how we came to be here, that is a long sto­ry: chil­dren, eco­nom­ics, chance, and prob­a­bly many oth­er things I have forgotten.

      Reply
  1. I met you once. It was over a decade ago and per­haps clos­er to two decades. You were in town (Albu­querque) and met with stu­dents at Geor­gia O’Keefe Ele­men­tary school. I so enjoyed you then: you were hon­est and hum­ble and very kind to the stu­dents. If you ever come back this way, know that there’s a spare bed­room with your name on it (and your wife as well). I could pro­vide you two as much iso­la­tion or com­pa­ny as you’d wish. Vis­it­ing cities is great, but some­times hotels are ster­ile places to spend the night.

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  2. I understand–we live 11 miles from the near­est community–our dri­ve­way is a 1/2 mile long. It’s 22 miles to a Safe­way, Wal­greens, fast food, etc. We look straight out at Pikes Peak to the west of us. We can see the San­gre de Chris­to moun­tains to the south. We DO get mail deliv­ery (half mile down the driveway).
    As we are both retired we pre­fer the solitude–except when I wish I could go to my book­club meet­ing in Den­ver (100 miles away–a 2 hour dri­ve). We have 6 neigh­bor homes with­in a cou­ple of miles and with­in our view.
    I look for­ward to the next time I run in to you at a book­seller’s conference!
    Shirley Sternola

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  3. I met you in Walk­er, MN, last year at Spot­light on Books. I grew up in Col­orado Springs and can’t wait to return to CO, except I’m mar­ried to a guy who does NOT want to move there. Ugh. Col­or me jeal­ous. I under­stand the need for soli­tude but also the need for people.

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  4. Avi, this pho­to makes me yearn for a sim­pler, qui­eter life. Yet, I know that deep down I would miss the hum of kids play­ing in the street, a ran­dom car dri­ving by, and the ease of rid­ing my bike to our local shop­ping cen­ter. This is why you must con­tin­ue to vis­it schools and author events…to get your dose of crazyville so you can appre­ci­ate your idyl­lic home when you return. Love read­ing your mus­ings on life and writing.

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  5. Some writ­ers find the bus­tle of the big city fod­der for end­less sto­ries. I, per­son­al­ly, need some­thing in between. For­tu­nate are those who can have a sum­mer home and a win­ter home.
    Maybe you can come down from the moun­tain for the win­ters, and have the best of both.

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