Marshall Bypass, Madison County, NC 2015
For whatever you’re doing, for your creative juices, your geography’s got a hell of a lot to do with it. You really have to be in a good place, and then you have to be either on your way there or on your way from there. Neil Young, 2012 interview with NY Times reporter David Carr
Returning home from trips, no matter the direction I’m driving from, there are particular spots along the highways where I sense the change. Something – the smell, the look, the taste in the air – signals “I am home.” I’m back where I can most be myself, my most creative self, my easiest self. Back to the place I know best, the place that knows me best.
It’s different when I leave. My longing is immediate and palpable for a place I’m already missing, even as the mountains recede in my rear-view mirror. But the expanse of the road ahead, new people and new places, they, too, have allure, especially when informed by my spot in the mountains and the knowledge I will soon return there.