I'm sick of scraping my car, zipping my coat, wrapping my scarf, closing the windows. But even after this snow-full winter, I still enjoy making fresh tracks in the snow on a long walk with Pete. We had a good heart to heart, like usual. He always understands. About making fresh tracks... While I'm so anxious to start my new job and move, I've always been a person with a sense of place. I value environment, and roots. I started to think about leaving for good. About how my sense of place will change, and how I will see my home in a new light; I will see it as someone removed.
On my walk it became clearer to me that the things and spaces around me are only associations-- for time spent, worked, and wasted. But they are not only associations as in merely, for what good are our memories if we aren't tied to them? Not tied outside of us, like in a snapshot or a song. Those are only triggers. But in spaces and surroundings, our bodies AND our minds are able to connect to times and memories. We can stand in those idealized, immortalized spaces. We can let our memory naturally inhabit us-- from the numbing of our cheeks, to the familiar sounds of the backyard at nightfall, to the smells of each season. Our mind recreates memories in dimensions otherwise unattainable. As we stand, time gets lost. Age loses importance, contentment and peace fill us. That is where a good, long walk in solitude leads me. On this particular walk, I tried to see past the associations and see the space and things around me in the clearest prescription. What I realized, with a critical eye, is that this place is not very special. There are many places more beautiful, and in a broad sense it is not even very unique. But still, as I look even beyond the associations of my mind and body, it is my ideal place in many ways.
More and more, I see this perspective as a gift that has been strengthened by time spent in that place. As I leave, I am so thankful for this place, its strong ties to memory and meaning, and the people who created that it for me. I hope I can do as well in places to come....
