Karen Bailey's mountain cabin
Today I am honored to share with you the writing and photography of Karen Bailey. Karen is a reader, a guest, and more important to me, a friend, more like a sister. Karen and her husband Ron visited recently. Here, she writes briefly about that time. Her perspective on the mountain I believe is one many of you may relate to, as do I. I hope you enjoy. Thank you, Karen, for sharing the beauty of your words, and feelings, with us.
Karen Bailey's coyote in the shadows
My heart is heavy. I long to be back in the mountains, specifically back at Lost Trail Ranch. Now, it only seems a dream that I was there just last week, but as life sometimes goes, an email from home beckoned us back after only a day in paradise. Some think of paradise as a beach and ocean but not me. The mountains have always been my paradise. When I go to them I feel like I am returning home and when I leave them they call me back time and time again. I yearn for them every day. It is never easy for me to leave and go back to my “real” life and home that seems a world away. I feel as if my heart is being torn apart—do others feel this way, too? It leaves me wondering, “Where is home, really?” Some say home is where the heart is but what if your heart is in two places at once? Is home really a physical place or is it truly something we hold in our heart?
Karen Bailey's on the road to the ranch
John Muir loved the mountains, too. He said, “Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home…” and “The mountains are calling and I must go.”
Lost Trail Ranch—I fell in love with it the first time I vacationed there in the summer of 2007 and have been “called” back every year since. I remember driving up Forest Service Road 520 toward the ranch in awe of the amazing and indescribable beauty all around me. Last week driving up the snow packed road was almost as if I had never been there before. For with the snow comes a whole new world, a whole new peacefulness, a new life. How grateful I am to have experienced this beauty if even for such a short time. A coyote curiously watching us from the frozen reservoir and one running in front of us as if leading us to the ranch. Moose down near the river causing the young horses to protest their presence. Stellar Jays, Chickadees and Magpies all hoping for a scrap outside the cabin. Endless Snow, Endless Stars, Magical Beauty. Snowshoeing on the frozen Rio Grande in pristine wilderness seen by so few humans in the history of the world and sharing time with dear friends.
Now, here I am hundreds of miles away, listening to the sounds of my own backyard. Cardinals, robins, titmice, chickadees, airplanes, trains…Home, yes, home IS where the heart is and I do suppose it can be in two places at once.
Karen Bailey's view back to the ranch from across the Rio Grande