We went out to Bedlam Farm over the weekend, our first visit there since it was rented to a very nice family with three children. We thought we should just take a look. The house and grounds are in great shape, we are very fortunate in our tenants, they not only pay the rent promptly, they are taking great care of the house and the grounds. It has been a hard winter up there for them, they are going through a lot of firewood and doing a lot of snow removal.
The house looks lovingly cared for, Marybeth did a wonderful job painting the downstairs hallway and Maria and I had never seen the kitchen looking so neat and clean. We’ve rented the farm until October of 2015 and we both found we just don’t think much about it anymore, it feels like someone else lives there now, which is true I suppose. The new farm has been such a creative and connecting place for us, we are so busy and engaged there that we just don’t look back much.
This has always been my way, especially recently. People e-mail me every day and ask how the farm is, how the tenants are doing, how the place is. I don’t think about it much, the farm is fine, the tenants great. Bedlam Farm was a very powerful place for me, I wrote a bunch of books there, was changed forever there, I found Maria there, Rose and Izzy and other animals in my life died there, it is such a beautiful place, so much happened to me there, some of it wonderful, some awful. But it is not my place any more, not really, and I have a life to live in our new home, which we love, and which is just as important in its own way.
As I’ve often written, nostalgia is a trap, I am not inclined to look backwards much, every day is a gift to me, a chance to find love and be loving, to write well, to take photos, to share my life with such a wonderful and loving person. I don’t feel the need to look back and dwell on what I have lost or left, I have no reason much to look back, I will always love Bedlam Farm, I look forward to the day when it finds the loving people it deserves to own it and care for it. It will change and transform, as it did me, it is that kind of place. We don’t need to check on the farm, it is in good hands. It will be a good while before we return.