Home
12/19/24 → 3/31/26
I’m home again — in Denver —
mired in the thought that
home is malleable.
Home has been many places, many friendships, a few lovers, and God.
Home is only stable when it wants to be.
Home is only noble when it wants to be.
When it decides the time is right,
home reminds you that it never existed in the first place.
Home is an sensation.
Home is arbitrary,
simply because you can, ‘be at home,’
but feel like a stranger — or prisoner — inside of it.
For some, home is comfort,
so they say, “I’m coming back home.”
A comedy of errors — born from ungrounded desire.
To go back to a feeling that once was but no longer is.
Why don’t we say, “I’m going forward, home.”
Perhaps we’ve forgotten what it’s like to be nomads.
Home shouldn’t have to be a memory.
Home shouldn’t have to be nostalgic.
Home should be an idea that you can carry,
whether it’s rooted in your subconscious,
or at the forefront of your mind.
I’m supposed to be back home in Denver,
but I’m looking forward.
Staring at the Rockies from my favorite park bench —
a park I’ve never cared to learn the name of —
hoping to find my home somewhere else.
In the realm of writing, I used to hate the process of editing. As I grew to understand it, that hate became a craving.
So, for the last few weeks I’d been meaning to publish a piece that I’d written in the past. I wanted to evolve or complete something ‘old’, rather than plant fresh seeds. I’d been waiting to act on a spark, the same way I did when publishing my previous pieces, Perception and Roses.
Over the years I’ve learned to not fight my muses, but rather to flow with them. As a man with a plethora of creative mediums very close to home, I used to struggle — and often still do — trying to understand how to balance them. The more I’ve grown, the more I’ve resonated with the understanding that for a Swiss army knife, sometimes the overarching artistic pursuit isn’t meant to be a balancing act. Oftentimes it’s meant to be impulsive, without precedent or reason.
Even so, I still chase these impulses and find myself attempting to curate invitations to them, though more and more I resolve to allow them to exist on their own terms. After reading The Creative Act by Rick Rubin, my understanding of the artistic pursuit crystallized into a modus operandi.
Now I know that when I fight my muses, my desire for a certain outcome can supersede the most beautiful part of the ‘creative act’: uncertainty.
I woke up today with no particular urge to write. Suddenly impulse arrived. With an empty calendar and clear conscience, this ‘creative act’ had begun.
After spending years bouncing from city to city, I’d landed in Denver — and for a while, it felt like home. Then a business-trip visiting a client in Maui turned to a full-time job, and became a catalyst for a year-long vision quest that fluctuated on a spectrum of self-discovery and escapism. When I returned, the feeling that Denver was home had faded.
Within minutes of my arrival, I rolled a spliff, grabbed my notebook, and drove to Westlands Park. After making one lap around the park, I sat down on a memorial bench and stared into the mountains, unknowingly engaged in an open-eye meditation; to that point I’d only ever practiced closed-eye.
In the early Fall, smoke from the nationwide forest fires still fogs the view of the front range visible from Denver. In Winter, the view clears up; all the details, all the foliage, every crevasse. Each inhale reminded me just how much I’d grown to love the grounds I was standing on, but each exhale exposed the uncertainty of my concept of home — layer after layer.
Perhaps this was a lifelong issue. Growing up in a broken home, I never really felt like I had a permanent one. The first time I’d come close to feeling home was in a meditation at the summit of Carpenter Peak, but that spatial association with warmth, familiarity, and belonging was co-opted by the ridgelines of Haleakalā.
Just as I began sketching the mountains, the urge to write took over. My muses informed me that this should be a moment of reflection; one where I was meant to look back and capture thoughts, memories, prose... It wasn’t meant to be spent visually capturing the vastness of God’s ‘creative act’ in front of me. In this particular moment, I couldn’t forge ahead without first sitting with what was behind me. 2024 had to close its doors before I could look forward to 2025.
Last week, my time in Colorado came to an end. I drew the curtain on a broader journey; a six-year trek from New Jersey to Los Angeles, and ultimately to Denver. I’ve finally completed my move to New York City, which I spent my entire life fantasizing about calling home. However, a recent trip to San Francisco — another business-trip (a pattern is brewing) — made me realize that yet another westward journey is around the corner.
I love New York City, but there are no real mountains nearby. Some native east-coasters will complain about this sentiment and retort with comments about the Appalachian Mountains. Dearest east-coasters, those are not mountains, those are hills. Don’t play yourselves. The culture of this city and the relationships I have nestled inside of it currently have my heart, but my yearning for accessible nature (especially mountains) close to home will inevitably overtake my lust for the luxuries of a cultural oasis.
In the photos I’ve uploaded above there’s one little note that got cut off; my final note after writing the poem, and an all-encompassing send-off.
“Keep looking at the mountains (they’re supposed to be home).