Maria and I went to the first Bedlam Farm today to take some things out, it looks like a number of people are getting interested in the property and may soon make competing offers to buy it. I only know about one of them, and they sound very nice, almost perfect for this place, so special to me.

Maria loved the farm, she loved her first studio there, the special safety and beauty of the place, of the path. But it was never our place, as this new farm is, it was always my place, and that was one of the reasons it was so important that we moved. The other was that we could no longer afford to live there, my world had changed.

It is hard for me to go there, I love the place, so much happened to me there. Our friend Jack Metzger came by to take some furniture out and sell it in his antique store. There wasn’t much, but we wanted him to have it. Every book I’ve written up here has been written on a desk Jack sold to me. But it hurts to see the farm, I admit it. My blood is in every acre, every barn.   It marked the start of my search for life, my hero journey, it sealed the end of my long marriage, my leaving all that was familiar and safe.

That farm brought me to nature, to Maria, to a life with animals, to seven books and two children’s books, to Rose, Orson, Izzy, Lenore, and Red, to a dreadful breakdown in the midst of my own madness, a recession and the disintegration of modern publishing. It was a wonderful place, and an awful place, I felt the worst pain of my life there, and the greatest joy and understanding.

I faced myself up there in that beautiful place, and I survived it, even if just barely. It made me and it broke me.  The house has been on the market for four years, it was originally listed for $475,000 and is now listed at $249,000, that seems to have finally brought serious buyers rushing. Finally, the farm is getting what it deserves. I love to go down to the bottom of the hill and look up at this magical place. On the left, the old carriage barn where the horses were kept, in the center, the big old farmhouse, a spacious and idiosyncratic and graceful place, built in 1861 by James Patterson. To the right, the big old hay and cow barn, and around, several outbuildings to shade sheep or horses, or goats.

There is a mile long path through the woods where Maria and I and the dogs walked every day, where Rose took off after the animals on my first night there in the midst of an awful blizzard and brought them home. She was six months old, we set off on this great and creative and amazing adventure together, they made a movie – “A Dog Year” of my trip upstate, but the real fireworks came later, the first year was nothing compared to the next few.

We have tried to be faithful to the farm, to support and maintain it. We rented it when we could, hired people to care for it when we couldn’t rent it.  We fixed everything that broke or blew away or got rained on. These four years have tested us financially in painful and unrelenting ways, I will be honest and say that no money paid for the purchase of the house will go to me or to Maria, it is mine now in name only.  I will still honor our commitment it to the end, or at least as long as I can, whichever comes first.

That makes me sad, the house deserves better,  it is hard for me to go there, and I will never understand why such a beautiful and wonderful a place could be rejected so many times for so many reasons.

But I think that period is over. Change is, in fact, the only constant.

I only want one thing for the farm now, for it to come into the hands of someone who loves it.  That will give me light and healing. Our realtor, Kristen Preble, has been nothing less than heroic. So many people told us, as the years went by, oh, get another agent, try another agent. We did not, we would not. Kristen has become like a member of our family, she has walked those grounds 1,000 times, most often for people who had little interest in the property, they wanted to know where Rose worked or Izzy slept.

Two weeks ago, Kristen called me and she was near tears, she said she had lost the house key for the first time, she was mortified. “Don’t be sad, Kristen,” I said, “this could happen to anybody. We love you.”  Thanks, she said, “I love you guys, too.” That kind of connection could never be replaced, not by anyone in the corporate world. Kristen deserves some reward for her faithfulness to this place, and I think she will get it. She has worked so hard, been through so much.  I will get mine too, just not in money. I can never repay what Bedlam Farm gave me or did for me, for the creative joy in sitting on that screened in porch, looking out over the beautiful valley and singing my song.

Today, going to the farm for one of the last times – I am thinking it will be sold soon, and even if it isn’t, my connection to it is broken and nearly over, except in my heart  – that heart was heavy, yet also somehow growing lighter. I feel the place is letting loose it’s grip on me, is ready to move ahead, and I can feel people who will love it moving our way, moving closer. It is such a steal now,  people are appearing almost every day. It’s time has come. Financially, this will mean nothing to me, what is lost is lost.

And I love our new home, we love our new home. It is our house, in every way. It is where we belong now, both of us.This afternoon, I was  fantasizing about a move into the deep woods one day, and Maria looked at me and said “I am never leaving this house, not ever, until the day I can’t live here any more.” She meant it. That is how one should feel about a house, it is how I felt about the first Bedlam Farm. She will perhaps never know how happy I was to hear her say that, with such conviction and strength.

What I want is for people who care about it to take it over, to love it and care for it and appreciate it. That is all I want, all I need. I am over the frustration and the bewilderment and thinking about all the money I spent there to fix it up, and the nest egg that melted away, the debt that built up, about  how astoundingly creative a place that was for me, and how important to Maria. She fulfilled her dream to be an artist there. We both came into our lives and came of age there, so much pain, so much glory, so much love. There is no looking back, no more trying to understand. A time for acceptance and grace.

So this week, a time hopefully for liberation and separation, for saying goodbye to this amazing home and beautiful piece of land,  and moving forward. I think there will be some news, at long last.  I will never forget Bedlam Farm or ever completely leave it. But I have and will move on already, my spirit and my heart have already moved.  A piece of my souls is in the ground there, is in those barns, it rips whenever I come and go.

Standing in the big barn where Maria and I got married, I felt hot tears streaming down my face. I could not tell you what I was crying about. Sometimes you love something the most by letting it go.