Today, ever inspired by E.B. White (“One Man’s Meat”), who got himself to a Maine farm later in life, I’m starting a new column, I’m shooting for Monday’s but more frequently if the subject stirs me. In homage to White, an author and New Yorker essayist, I’m calling it “One Man’s Trail” because my trail led me here and my writing is about the tracks I have left and which have been left on me.

In my lifetime I have lived in Providence, R.I., Boston, New York City, Cambridge, Mass.,  Baltimore, Dallas, Montclair, N.J., Washington, D.C., West Hebron, N.Y., and now, Jackson Township, just outside of Cambridge, N.Y. and, for a few sweet weeks, London, England, and Berlin, Germany.  For more of my six decades I have lived in cities and suburbs. Of these places I loved New York City, Cambridge, Mass., and Boston the most. I disliked Washington and the New Jersey suburbs the most. Not how I was meant to live.

I have been living in rural life for nearly 15 years now, living on farms here full-time since 2003. Rural life has transformed my life, my work, my love. It has brought me to a life with animals, placed me in the center of a culture which seems, on the surface, quite different from me, but which is, on reflection very much where I belong. I have felt at home here ever since I arrived, more so every day. There is so much life her, joy and sorrow, struggle and purpose, you can get close to all of it. The column will be stories from rural life, my own perspective and observations.

When I sat down to write this column, I lit a candle, meditated, closed my eyes and waited to see what came into my head. Good writing is interior, authentic, honest.

These things did:

_ Brushing the donkeys every morning, feeling their soft noses on my hands, their bodies leaning into me.

_Asking Red to move the sheep, waiting for the sound of their hooves.

_Standing and talking to my friend Jack Macmillan, both of us in the position, arms folded, feet planted wide, roots coming out of our butt, hot air coming out of our mouths, Jacks’ hands pinwheeling for exclamation, he knows every person, road and story in the county and will tell a few if pressed.

_Listening to my farmer friends complain that it is too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry. And the strange thing is, they are always right.

_Walking on trails in the woods with Maria, the dogs, seeing the canopy shift in the wind, watching the sun poke through, seeing the dog’s ruffs come up when they come across bear tracks.

When I think of my rural life, I think the biggest thing is that I feel known here. When I walk into the Round House Cafe, Alliyah or Nicole start working on my sandwich before I get in the door, and they remind me to get Maria something sweet for dessert, as I always do.

Rural life is the place of lost values, you will never see a thing about in on what they call the “news,” it has been abandoned, forgotten in the new global economy, all the more important to write about it.  Here, timeless values live – the meaning of a neighbor, the joy of good gossip,  strong men and women who know how the world works and don’t need to call people to keep their worlds going. Kids walking home from the school bus, kids who look you in the eye shake your hand and ask how you are, sir.

I think of Russell in the hardware store who refused to sell me an axe without talking to Maria first. “Does she know you’re buying this?,” he asked me, “have her call me.”  I think of the many times I have forgotten to bring my wallet or credit card, and how the response is always the same: “We know where you live. Bring it by when you can.”

I think of my neighbor who went and brushhogged Bedlam Farm because it was getting overgrown and he wanted it to look good when it was shown. I think of all the trucks that stopped when pigs were running in the road, and all the neighbors who came running when my sheep broke out.

I think of all the farmers who let me into their barns with my camera, none of them ever asking why, and how they open up their difficult lives to me. And how it breaks my hear to see this stubborn and proud people struggle so hard, every card in the world stacked against them like the Wall Of China.  I think of the electrician who sent me a big bill after we moved into the new house, more than I thought and he told me to take my time paying for it. I think of all the hard-working men and women hanging onto their rural lives while the government and the economists take away their jobs and build a new economic system that has forgotten what people are for. I think of the courteous and conscientious hunters who love the land and won’t shoot a deer if they think it is unfair.

I think of all the  young men and women who go off to war and leave their aching and worried families behind. You meet them up here, not much in Montclair, N.J.. I think of a way of life that is vanishing but is still so strong, filled with values, connection, a sense of place and belonging. I think of all the dogs who live out their lives running in fields, fighting with porcupines, lives without leashes or boundaries.

It seems so right that I met Maria up here, she was what  you were looking for all the time, said the shrink, and I think of her exclaiming over butterflies, saving moths, walking barefoot through the pasture, loving her donkeys, her pagan spirit alive around nature. She is a fairy, an elf, an angel, free her to spin her magic.

Mother Earth is our friend and partner her, our soulmate in rural life, the reason so many of us come, stay, why so many can’t leave. It is the most precious gift to look at beautiful things, to see the storm clouds coming, to love the light on the hills, to hear the streams and rivers, listen at night to  the coyotes chilling cries. I love the farrier, the shearer, the people living their full lives on the edge without health insurance, IRA’s, happy and strong. I am happy to be writing “One Man’s Trail.” It is ready to come out. Every Monday.