Reflections on Home: The Restorium
The “Restorium”
In 1977, I came Home, as John Denver would say, “to a place I’d never been before.” After having graduated from college in 1976 and having completed, in March of ’77, a six-month backpacking tour of Europe, I came Home to a place that was already a residence for some ancient, spectacular blue spruces, for a chapel that had been built in a little clearing, for a whole host of critters big and small and for a retreat cabin that served as a place of pilgrimage for many followers and students of Laurel Elizabeth Keyes (including Bill Boast). Little did I know then that this first Home of mine in the mountains would be a source of Home for me and eventually my family for the next 43 years and counting. While on my post-graduation, backpacking tour of Europe, I vividly remember looking out the window of a Swiss train onto a beautiful landscape of the Alps and hearing a clear voice say to me, “Return to the mountains of Colorado.”
When I returned to Denver with just a dollar in my pocket, I responded to the voice I heard in the Alps and put out the word that I was looking for a place to live in the mountains. As she did on many occasions, Barbara Dalberg stepped up and played the part of my helper along the way and introduced me to Laurel Keyes who offered me a place to stay in the downstairs library room of what she called, the “Restorium.” For minimal rent and with the agreement that I would serve as caretaker of the cabin and chapel, the Restorium served as a physical Home for me for a year. But beyond providing me with an opportunity to live in and hike the mountains, the Restorium brought me into contact with many wonderful people, ideas and conversations and became an axis mundus for my soul for many years to follow. Then in 1997, Barbara, stepping up and playing the part of my helper again, called to say that the property was going on the market. Teri and I, through the uncanny serendipity of the universe (a story for another blog post), became its official caretakers and we renamed it, the Sprucetree, in honor of the sentinel ladies that seem to guard and protect the place. Both as the Restorium and now as the Sprucetree, this cabin has served as an iconic emblem of Home and reveals to me elements that transform a house into a Home. Here are the main ingredients that make this throwback of a mountain cabin such a special place of Home:
First and foremost, it has always fueled my imagination.
It has always been a source of nourishment for my soul calling out the best in me.
It has been a center for great conversations, lively book group meetings, great picnics and potlucks, special game nights and “screenless” nights of crafts with the grandchildren.
It has been a welcoming place where perfect strangers have arrived from the east (Kansas 😊) and have become dear friends.
It has been a place of special ceremonies to remember those who have died, special christenings and weddings.
It is a protected place where I am free from the fray of internet notifications of all kinds.
And so I write this blogpost from the Sprucetree, my source of Home for some 43 years now, and I look forward to adding on to my blog with reminiscences and insights that have come to me by way of my Home here on the mountain.