Copyright © 2022 by Frances Mayes All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Crown, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York. CROWN and the Crown colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA NAMES: Mayes, Frances, author. TITLE: A place in the world / Frances Mayes. DESCRIPTION: First edition. | New York: Crown, [2022] IDENTIFIERS: LCCN 2022016137 (print) | LCCN 2022016138 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593443330 (hardcover; acid-free paper) | ISBN 9780593443347 (ebook) SUBJECTS: LCSH: Mayes, Frances—Travel. | Mayes, Frances—Homes and haunts. | Women authors, American—20th century—Biography. | LCGFT: Travel writing. | Essays. CLASSIFICATION: LCC PS3563.A956 P57 2022 (print) | LCC PS3563.A956 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54 [B]—dc23/eng/20220406 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2 022016137 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2 022016138 Ebook ISBN 9780593443347 crownpublishing.com Book design by Barbara M. Bachman, adapted for ebook Cover design: Christopher Brand Cover art: copyright © Estate of Nell Blaine, courtesy Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York ep_prh_6.0_140819454_c0_r1 Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Epigraph Preface: I Could Live Here Introduction: Imprint Part I: A House Down South Lighting Seven Fireplaces Who Lives Here? Green World Camellia Magnolia Gardenia Sun Standing Still Secret Spaces My Southern Accent The Ghost Who Cooks Part II: Yearning for the Sun Toward the Apennines, Toward the Lake Dinner / Cena Time Difference Risking Happiness Pure Gold Clasps Cucina Povera / The Poor Kitchen Household Shrine Exile 2020 Part III: Southern Exposure The House on South Lee Street The Monumental Cakes of Frankye Davis Mayes Frankye’s Cookbooks And Again to the Golden Isles Part IV: Momentary Homes Why Not Stay Blue Apron Fragments A Place to Hide Water Maze Part V: Friends at Home Home Thoughts: A Litany The Taste of Memory Part VI: Rhymes with Home Changing the Changes Memento Vivere (Remember to Live) Part VII: Why Stay? Annals of Stone “I Left a Basket of Figs by Your Gate” Envoi: Architect Dedication Acknowledgments A Note on Sources Also by Frances Mayes About the Author A Reader’s Guide …how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will. —Czesław Miłosz, “Ars Poetica” Perhaps home is not a place but an irrevocable condition. —James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room The house is the same size as the world, or rather it is the world. —Jorge Luis Borges, “The House of Asterion” T in my headlights. I always seem to HE SPRAWLING WHITE FARMHOUSE LOOMS arrive home from my travels at night. Stepping out of the car, I’m hit by the fecund smell of the Eno River, which cuts through our meadow, wet grass (needs mowing), the greeny scent rising from a thousand trees, and the sound of screeching tree frogs. If it’s early summer, any breeze wafts the divine sweetness of magnolia and tea olive. In winter, winking string lights along the porch cast light onto the bumpy stone path that ruins the wheels of my roll-on. In deep summer, bright sparks of fireflies, in autumn the crunch of fallen walnuts, and a clutch of purple asters around the back door. Kiss the ground. Pull the door to you or the key won’t turn. Then it does. Anyone home? Home: where and why this house? Is home fixed forever or a moveable concept? How do four walls, utilitarian and convenient, or soulful and evocative, connect with your metabolism and turn into that charged feeling of I’m home? Or is home a quest never to be fulfilled? Down the road not taken—was there a blue door for you to open? Some writer said, “My home is my subjects.” What a floating idea of home. Mine feels more visceral. Most alluring, the places where you feel an immediate, illogical bonding.