The Home Place, Red Rock, East Chatham NY

Clark Road looking west, May 8, 2008

This is my old home place, the farm I grew up on, the place I left to begin these winter journeys to the southwest.

Orchard Lot camp, June 4, 2009

Red Rock is a rural hamlet near Chatham in Columbia County, New York.

I used to camp in a few locations on what little I had left of the family farm
- In the driveway by the house
- Across the road where the barn once stood
- On the 20 acre piece off Less Traveled Road
Now, with the kind support of the friends who now own the place, I camp across the road where the barn once stood.
Verizon cell phone service - Terrible, barely usable with an amplifier
Verizon EVDO service - Terrible, barely usable with an amplifier
Find other references to Home Place
List the nights I've camped here
Check the weather here

Nights I've camped here

Finding the Words to Fit It

There is an idea current in the prevailing culture that writing about something that pains you heals the pain. I was not, when I began writing my life story, and am not now, healed of my mother. But you do gain a small distance from anything by keeping it in suspension in your mind while you work at finding the words to fit it. The process is so slow and incremental that you don't notice its effect, but the point is that it is a process.

Source: Almost There: the Onward Journey of a Dublin Woman, a Memoir by Nuala O'Faolain

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