(version 1 of this post had photos, but I was having trouble getting the page to load....use your imagination!)
Well, I know my loyal followers are wondering...wasn't she going to share with us all the exciting and wonderful things she learned in that class on religion and literature? Yes, I was! Only the class was cancelled. Maybe I'm bad luck, but the last two things I've signed up for have been cancelled due to low enrollment. Are my interests that weird?
Instead, I'll share something that happened to me while on vacation last week. While living in the Syracuse area we vacationed several years at a small cottage on a small reservoir only 15 minutes from our house. If needed, we could easily run home to get a forgotten item, but otherwise we could pretend we were hours away. The boys could have friends over for the day and night, swimming lessons could continue, and driving tests taken. After a few years away, I've gone back to the cottage the last few years.
A friend often asks me how it feels to be back in Syracuse. I feel like I've disappointed her when I say it’s fine, so I wrote this explanation:
I do like being here. I have lots of happy memories, good friends, and, even though things change, a comforting sense of the familiar. Lots of things happened in my 20 years here. It is where I raised my sons. I changed a lot, grew, one might even say blossomed. It is the place of many of the happiest memories in my life so far, and of most of my saddest. For whatever reason, though, the sad memories aren’t attached to place. They haunt me at unexpected times, walking along the streets of Chicago, driving through Indiana, or, occasionally, late at night.
Our house in Pompey was about a mile from Pratt’s Falls Park and I spent hundreds (thousands?) of hours walking there alone. One day, walking a trail, I was drawn to a small clearing in the woods slightly off the path. Something about the reflection of the sun off the pines drew me in. I walked into this small circle and looked up at the slice of blue sky framed by the green needles. It seemed magical. I stood there for several minutes, taking deep breaths and turning in circles. I had a little piece of yarn in my pocket and before I left I tied it onto one of the branches. My version of a Buddhist prayer flag, I suppose. I’m a little embarrassed to describe what happened over the next few years. I started bringing pieces of string, yarn, or ribbon, little trinkets, pretty stones, or colored leaves. I created my temple with these offerings to the forest. This was my sanctuary, my refuge, my fairy castle. Sometimes I sat and cried in frustration, fear, or sadness. Some days I twirled in joy. I talked out loud or laid in the snow. It was a special place.
During my first few visits back here, weather, time, and inappropriate clothing conspired to keep me from returning to the park. When I did make it back, a few years ago, I walked along the trail certain I would know exactly where to enter the woods. Of course, I didn’t. Things had changed, my memory had faltered. I wander a little through the area I thought was mine, but there were no traces of my temple. Birds, nature, people, time..., my offerings were gone, or at least hidden from me. I walked through the woods, a little sad that I had lost my bearings. I left a ribbon as close to what I thought was my original spot as I could. It was the best I could do. Today I walked the trail again. I smiled when I found my last offering still there, and added another ribbon.
It isn’t what it was. That place is gone. But it was there when I needed it. The spirits, gods, fairies, or whatever made room for me, more than that, they invited me to sit in their lap while I cried, and gave me a space to try out new language, new thoughts, and new ways of thinking. It isn’t what it was, but I know what it was.
So, it does feel good to come back, and I hope it always will.
