I’m quiet here. From inside to out. Pittsburg is a place you feel in the deepest part of you. There’s a richness to the air here, a deeper breath, and a grateful exhale. I am surprised by the slowing of me. The softening of me. Internally, there’s an easing of some sort. I feel the taut places in me go slack. I stretch my arms wide and high overhead … I reach, breathe, gather, pray. Here, I am a verb of being.

Good morning from Pittsburg, New Hampshire.

Given its 291 square miles in area, Pittsburg tops the list of incorporated New England towns as the largest. The town’s also tucked in at just about the 45th parallel — the most northern town in New Hampshire — bordering not only Canada, but Maine to the east and Vermont to the west. The longest river in New England, the Connecticut River, begins its 410 mile journey toward the Long Island Sound at Fourth Connecticut Lake in Pittsburg, a literal stone’s throw from the province of Quebec, Canada.

If you’re in need of a little soul-searching, I’d start here.

Away from home and out of the regular life loop, Pittsburg transforms me. I am different here from there. I think it’s important to notice what a place offers in these moments of the experience, but also what it has to teach me. Who am I here and can I take her home with me?

In Pittsburg I find a rare kind of hope – wild, wide-open, and free. There’s hope in the tremolo of a loon and the unexpected flash of white across the broad chest of a deer. I measure time by the movement of clouds and the flow of water. Even the scolding of a red squirrel stills my soul somehow – or maybe it’s me, myself, still enough to hear it at all. Though we hardly ever meet, moose, bear, fox and I walk the same trails and it seems certain we’ll all find our way bettered from just venturing out in the first place.