It happens to everyone as they grow up, I believe. It is part of the never-ending dialogue we have with ourselves as we experience the power of life. You find out who you are and what you want, and then you realize that people you’ve known forever don’t see things the way you do, or feel the things you feel, or live the way you live.

So you look inward and see who you are and what it is you truly need and want, and they you set out to find it, you find yourself moving on.

This has been the story of my life until I moved to a farm, and then felt I had come home, and stopped moving on. I moved searching for happiness and fulfillment and then finally saw that this had to come from the hard work of learning who I was. It didn’t matter where I lived.

Peace is an internal, not an external thing. It never comes from where you live, only from who you are.

People who move in search of happiness are almost invariably disappointed, in my experience. Because they just keep changing the scenery, not the narrative of their lives. Fantasies don’t make people happy, they keep them from learning how to be happy.

But the story in my head today is this: the specter of moving on has arisen again, as improbably as it seems. The ghost returns.

I’ve known Maria for a decade now, and seem to love her more and more with each passing day. As long as I’ve known her, I have always believed she would live in New Mexico one day. She always talked of the place – she lived there for a time – in a way that she never spoke of any other  place. It showed in her eyes.

She talked of the color and light there, of the profound connection to nature she felt there, of the rich culture and connection to nature there, and of the sun and the sky.

She never spoke as an enthralled tourist, blown away by the scenery, but rather more as an artist who was inspired in a powerful way by a place, much like Georgia O’Keefe was. She talked about the color and sense of belonging.

Artists and writers come to life when they find their true place, there is a connection to places and the geography of the soul.

I see that the colors of New Mexico chop up all the time in our home and in her art and I have no doubt she will live there some day.  I saw her face in New Mexico as she walked the hills and met the artists. She was happy in a profound and deep way.

I always assumed that when Maria got to New Mexico, it would be without me, the next chapter, the life beyond me. I suspect that is still so.

My feeling about her living there one day was reinforced on our trip. She was radiant and connected and so very much at home there, if seemed to me this was home to her, in a way. She should be here, I kept thinking. This is her place.

But I had never seen myself in that picture.

Maria is complex in this way, as many artists are, she loves our home in upstate New York as well, and she loves her friends and her life here, and her studio and her good with friends and her donkeys, and the power of the hills and woods.

The natural world abounds here as well.

She was  surprised by how much I loved New Mexico (me too)  as well, and for some of the same reasons. I felt the creative power of the place, and it affected me. and since I became a photographer, I am also sensitive to the light and colors there, and to the very powerful geography and drama of the place. All around me were jaw-dropping manifestations of beauty and nature. They called out to me to write about them and take some photos.

Something changed inside of my as well there. I felt healthy and strong and exited in a different way.

We were glad to come home, we love our little farmhouse and have shed much blood and tears on it.  Soon we will take on the kitchen, and in mostly New Mexico colors.

We are both surprised to see that we have started talking and thinking about living and moving there, something that would be extraordinarily difficult and impractical, and thus unlikely.

We both felt so comfortable there, and it would be a wonderful place to continue our work, my books, my blog, Maria’s art. It’s a fine place for dogs and donkeys too. I drool over the stories I could tell and the photos I could take.

As the November gray skies move over us and winter lurks just behind, the moderate climate and bright sun also seem to beckon. The people there seem warm and open. We met lots of people like us, who just upped and went there.

This morning, in the night, I thought deeply and for the first time about how I might help Maria – and me – pursue this dream, and if is practical or feasible in my lifetime.

There are enormous, perhaps insurmountable,  obstacles to our moving. One is that we love where we live – we are in no way unhappy here, quite the opposite.  There is no good reason to move. We feel a part of a rich and accepting and creative community. I always feel I have come home here.

Another is, as many people understand, financial. The great recession was very personal for us, as it was for so many others.

Because of the real estate crisis we faced in selling the first farm – it took four years and brought us to bankruptcy – we don’t have the resources to move and buy another house, and might not be able to even get a mortgage for awhile.

I have no complaints, we have paid off our debts and kept hour home and moved on. This was the deal we knew we were making.

We kept our house, but at a cost. We will never be able to profit much if we sold it. And we love living in it.

Real estate in New Mexico is complex, there are many issues over water and our dogs and donkeys  can’t just go anywhere. Moving would be a massive interruption in our work. We both keep dismissing this as an understandable, perhaps inevitable fantasy, returning from such a sweet vacation.

But the empathic part of me – and I do believe I am an empath – believes Maria will live there one day, I can see it. I would love to help make it happen, at these moments I wish I was richer.

It would be wrong to move there for her alone, I grasp the patronizing, even sexist overtones of that. For me, love is about selflessness, and just as she always thinks of me before herself, I think of her before me. At the same time, we have learned to protect ourselves and our own identities and not surrender them to anyone else again, not ever.

But New Mexico got into my head too, and we would not be the first artists or writers to follow that call. Every time I look down at my beautiful copper and silver bracelet, I think of the Navajo artist, sitting on the ground, his beautiful work spread out on his blanket, a scene that repeats itself in this market every day, as it has for hundreds of years.

And I think of the mountains and hills and limestone palaces and the sun and the clear bright blue sky. There are lots of home rentals in New Mexico where dogs can run and sheep and donkeys can graze.

In the morning light, it seems an impossible and unnecessary move. I have lots to do here, and so does Maria. Here, we are known, we have put our roots down deeply in the ground. Unlike many people, I love the deep winters here, the winter landscape. It’s the writers time, so few distractions.

But I need to be  honest as well.

On top of anything else, we just can’t afford to move. That is the boundary of the story. There is that other side of my that truly believes anything is possible if you want it badly enough and are willing to work hard for it.

That has been the story of my life. I believe I could make it happen, one way or the other. That doesn’t mean I should or will. The path forward will make itself clear, as it always does.

If I found Maria in Hebron, N.Y, right across the street, anything is possible. And I do believe we would thrive there – think of the blog and the photos. I felt especially vibrant and strong there, I can’t quite explain it.

So for now, we will wait awhile and see if this feeling goes away, as it probably will, or stays, or returns in force.  I have learned the hard way to be wary of fantasies, they eat up many more dreams than they create.

In the meantime, we love one another very much, and we both have lots to do.

If the fates mean for this to happen, for us to move to New Mexico,  we will know it, and I will share it, and we will make it happen.

Otherwise, I am very happy to be sitting here, dogs at my feet, fingers flying across the keyboards, a cup of tea by myself, my bees wax candle burning,  Maria clacking away on her blog in the living room, the donkeys braying to us to come outside with some carrots.

The storm creeps up to us. The wind is picking up,  the garbage cans are rolling across the lawn, Ed Gulleys’ wind chimes are alarmed and singing loudly, the donkeys have taken shelter in the pole barn, the dogs are curled up together by my feet.

The storm is whispering that it is close,  the leaves are blowing past my window, caught up in their wild dance of death. Days, winds, seasons, storms, decisions,  pass over me.

Whatever happens is acceptable to me, I am at peace. When I stand up to go outside, when I go to move, I feel as if I am rising up out of this world.