There is a stand of tall white pines a short walk from our house. I like to be there when the sun is setting behind the mountain and I am in the shade though the treetops are not. It reminds me of the pines in the woods of northern Minnesota, and the evergreens in Oregon though not nearly as large as those trees of the Cascade Mountains, but the quality of light is similar.
The light is always the key. It reminds me that I could be anyone, at any time, at any place in the world and there would be beauty. I’m not from here. I found myself here one day after living on the same plot of land for 20 years. Like a second awakening. This was it; my wife and I raised our family here. I left home at 19. It’s the longest I’d lived anywhere. I was suddenly at an age where I thought, I might die here, too. I realized that it was time to write about “place.”
Growing up just outside Minneapolis, I had wanted to live “in the country” since I was a boy. My grandparents ran a resort on a good little lake in northern Minnesota and a great-uncle had big family get-togethers on a farm south of the Twin Cities. My father was an avid fisherman and hunter. I spent a lot of time in rural settings. For a couple of years in junior high school, I thought I could still live off the land like a mountain man. My Godfather had a ranch in the Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming. I could start there, maybe make my way to Alaska.
But I got involved in the arts, acting, theater, and film. I began writing poems in my 20’s. I met Beth, my wife, in Minnesota. She is from Manhattan and wanted to live in the country. Growing up, she had spent time in the Mid-Hudson Valley and Vermont. After a few years of living in cities and in different states, we searched for rural property in the Midwest, but through friends and a set of fortunate circumstances we had an opportunity to move here, near Woodstock, New York, an artist colony in a rural setting. Perfect for a visual artist and a writer looking to leave city life.
We began in a one room cabin with a 4-month-old. I bailed hay and stained houses for a summer. We found steady work nearby and rented a house with a couple acres across from an old quarry. Then we bought the same house. It began small but had been added on to over the years. Not the wide-open land with an Airstream like we first imagined starting out, but quaint and sturdy (mostly). Just large enough to house a family with a little fixing up. That was 28 years ago.
Overlook, the mountain we live on the side of, looking up to Minister’s Face from our yard, has been the one constant in the life we live here. Out at the end of our road where it meets another, one can see straight to the fire tower. When I hiked to the top of the mountain, I found that 200-foot stretch of two-lane and thought how insignificant it looked before its curve disappeared under the canopy of trees. I wish someone in blaze orange would stand where I had so, I could see whether or not they were visible from that patch of road.
Mountains give life. This one has given us our well water, an abundance of fertility to grow a garden, stones for paths and fences, it gives shade and breeze on hot days, and firewood for the wood stove in winter. What have I given back? In answer one day, I cut my hand in the yard. Seeing my drops of blood in the dirt while thinking about spending the rest of my days here, possibly even having my ashes dispersed, yes, there is the giving of my body and its toil. We’ve tried to be good stewards of the land though we live mostly by modern means. The mountain has taught us how to be better. I give my attention. I’ve spent an afternoon watching an ant colony move its entire operation 40 yards across the property. There is so much life right out the door and under one’s feet. All gifted by the mountain. And poems. It’s what I made. Written and collected to honor this place which has sustained life—trying to understand both what we can and cannot see, an effort which is with us wherever we may find ourselves.
Later this month, Bushwhack Books will release “Time Under The Overlook,” a new poetry collection by Guy Reed inspired by the mountain that shapes so many lives in the Catskills.