Unfinished.

It is such an idyllic place. Just a few short yards away from all that is hectic and hurried, all that pushes life along at a frantic pace. As I sit I can hear the cars rushing past. But most of the time I am unaware of the road so close beside me. I have turned off of it, gently bumped down the gravel and meandered down the path to a place of rest.

            I wish I could take you there, to this place so dear to me. I wish my words could take you there. A bench, a single lone bench, sitting small and content beneath the shade of a grandfather tree. I hope you know what I mean by a grandfather tree. I hope you have experienced being nestled in the crook of a tree so ancient. Felt his comfort, felt his history, felt the stories that live within him.

            Perhaps it is merely a byproduct of a childhood lived beneath the spreading arms of venerable old oaks and joyful young birches, perhaps I simply read too many stories of Ents and Nyads, but I have something of a love affair with trees. I still believe there is something magical about them, still believe they hold old souls, and this is true of this particular old oak. As I rest my warm back against his tough skin, I feel his presence like a friend.

            As I climb the hill I see him, see the bench there, and my feet move a little faster. The water comes into view. I sink onto the bench, letting my backpack fall with a thud at my feet. And I simply sit. I sit for a moment, not thinking, but simply being. Clouds scud across the sky. Wind plays with the water, teasing it as it joyfully responds. The grandfather tree stretches his arms to bathe me in speckled light filtered through his leaves. I lie on my back and gaze at the world through his branches, hearing the screeching calls of birds.

            The cars rush past but here I am alone. Alone with my thoughts, with the life built up inside me, with the stories that are longing to be told. Stories have life. They have power, personality, and are as every-changing as the seasons. Why they have chosen to take up residence in my heart, I am not always entirely sure, but they are there and they cry to be told. And it seems they lead me to this place.

            A story is, in many ways, unmanageable. It is as recalcitrant as a child and when it cries to be told it must be told now, in a moment. Sometimes I wait patiently for hours, hoping the story will present itself to me and it never does. But perhaps that is the life of a writer. Hoping for a moment of inspiration, waiting for words to weave themselves into sentences and stories that will change the one who writes them. The one who hears the call and is unable to refuse.

            It is an unspeakable gift, the call of words, of paragraphs and synonyms. Of this gift of language to share the human experience, to let loose the stories living around us, within us. To discover your own soul written on a page. To deny such a call is to live half alive, to somehow disregard the deepest part of yourself.

            I discover the deepest parts of my heart on the page, I understand my own story as I write. And this place, this sunshine and shelter, this gentle breeze and towering branches, this means so much more than escape. I come here to write. I am drawn here, called here to listen to the cry of my heart. To understand myself.

            I come here to write. I write, not to forget, but to reflect. Not to escape but to experience. It is an escape that allows me to return to the real world. And every time I feel my heart sick, joyful, wrenched, overcome, peaceful, every time I hear my heart, I come here. To this place of expressing all that is within me.

           

            The seasons are changing now. The tree is naked, stripped of his leaves. Still he is majestic, but more like an old man, bent and hunched, a shadow of his former strength. The air is too cold to spend the days there. Despite my best intentions, I cannot stay there long without the cold South Dakota air causing me to shiver and soon shake. I cannot type, my fingers slowly become numb.

            And in many ways, it seems like that place is gone. Summer has faded, the sunshine has largely gone, hidden beneath the hooded gaze of grey November clouds. It seems to me that time has flown away with the geese that used to float on the water. My escape has vanished and in its place has come responsibility, deadlines, grades, and constant stress. And in many ways, it seems the sunshine has faded to grey. Freedom, sunshine, joy, and escape, these things have faded. And the naked tree, stretching his arms to the sky, no longer seems to be welcoming me. He simply seems unutterably sad.

             I go there now and the cold seeps into my bones. Things no longer seem so simple. Doubt creeps in like the cold and I wonder if this place is all I thought it was. If this place, this sacred spot, this moment of refuge, really causes me to understand myself. Does it really produce anything of meaning? This escape drains me more than it fills me. And I pick up my bag, trudge down the path, and drive slowly away. Trying to remember the sunshine. Forget the image of his naked arms stretching to the sky, begging for a moment of sunshine, of warmth. Of comfort and reassurance.