About is a tough one to write. Here's what I first wrote on the previous incarnation of this blog, back in 2009, but with some updates from the last 5+ years:
First, Mountain Womon--yes, that's spelled correctly...it was explained to me about 15 years ago as a way of making us rethink our language in order to rethink our ways of being. It took awhile before I understood and embraced it, but now I have trouble spelling it any other way!
Who am I? I'm a native of the Hudson Valley, who started life waaaaayyyyy down in a town that no longer exists (well, it exists but the name has been changed to protect the innocent, and celebrate the mythical past), North Tarreytown, aka Sleepy Hollow. It seems I've spent my whole life following the river northward, changing my mountains but never quite leaving their sight entirely...there were the Hudson Highlands in my early days, followed by a couple of decades of Shawangunks, and then... the Catskill Mountains of myth and lore, of profound beauty and ever-changing mood.
Perhaps 'Mountain' Womon is a misnomer, when one is at the bottom of the mountains and not IN them...and yet they are there every single day. Just before I get in the car to go to work (currently at a very small library) I do a quick check of the mountains from the driveway. Are they visible? Do I see snow? A tapestry of color? A carpet of green? I don't think there's ever been a time in the nearly eight years we've lived here that I went to the car without doing that check.
Driving home every day from the aforementioned work, I am profoundly blessed to head back towards those mountains, and every single day am awed by the ever-changing mood, magic and mystery of them. They are my landmarks in the most spiritual sense. It's funny; every day I drive over the Hudson River twice. Decades ago in high school that same crossing was part of daily life. When my sons were little we took them to play at a park overlooking the river. I love that river, love how it sinuously caresses the land it touches. But even though in some ways it has been even more present in my life than the mountains, somewhere along the way, they became part of me, and I became part of them. Maybe it happened when I first began sharing them with the love of my life, seeing them through her eyes. Maybe it started happening before that, during the then daily hour-long commute at a time that I was redefining life & self (oh, is that all?). Whenever the love affair began, it's still going strong, and they are an inextricable part of me.
So this blog is a love letter to this place I love, to the critter & green growing things-filled life we've created. It's a journal of discovery, a writing exercise, a place to hopefully corral my thoughts and warm-up my writing muscles as I finally begin to write the story I'm meant to tell. It's whatever it decides it should be.....
First, Mountain Womon--yes, that's spelled correctly...it was explained to me about 15 years ago as a way of making us rethink our language in order to rethink our ways of being. It took awhile before I understood and embraced it, but now I have trouble spelling it any other way!
Who am I? I'm a native of the Hudson Valley, who started life waaaaayyyyy down in a town that no longer exists (well, it exists but the name has been changed to protect the innocent, and celebrate the mythical past), North Tarreytown, aka Sleepy Hollow. It seems I've spent my whole life following the river northward, changing my mountains but never quite leaving their sight entirely...there were the Hudson Highlands in my early days, followed by a couple of decades of Shawangunks, and then... the Catskill Mountains of myth and lore, of profound beauty and ever-changing mood.
Perhaps 'Mountain' Womon is a misnomer, when one is at the bottom of the mountains and not IN them...and yet they are there every single day. Just before I get in the car to go to work (currently at a very small library) I do a quick check of the mountains from the driveway. Are they visible? Do I see snow? A tapestry of color? A carpet of green? I don't think there's ever been a time in the nearly eight years we've lived here that I went to the car without doing that check.
Driving home every day from the aforementioned work, I am profoundly blessed to head back towards those mountains, and every single day am awed by the ever-changing mood, magic and mystery of them. They are my landmarks in the most spiritual sense. It's funny; every day I drive over the Hudson River twice. Decades ago in high school that same crossing was part of daily life. When my sons were little we took them to play at a park overlooking the river. I love that river, love how it sinuously caresses the land it touches. But even though in some ways it has been even more present in my life than the mountains, somewhere along the way, they became part of me, and I became part of them. Maybe it happened when I first began sharing them with the love of my life, seeing them through her eyes. Maybe it started happening before that, during the then daily hour-long commute at a time that I was redefining life & self (oh, is that all?). Whenever the love affair began, it's still going strong, and they are an inextricable part of me.
So this blog is a love letter to this place I love, to the critter & green growing things-filled life we've created. It's a journal of discovery, a writing exercise, a place to hopefully corral my thoughts and warm-up my writing muscles as I finally begin to write the story I'm meant to tell. It's whatever it decides it should be.....