sacred places
FACT: 65 degrees is totally warm enough to get out the tank tops and wax poetic about spring.
FACT: Really good hugs can turn around a day.
FACT: I am officially choreographing a pas de deux to the Twilight soundtrack. Which is just all kinds of ironic.
FACT: I am getting excited about Florida!
FICTION: I am completely on top of things and everything that needs to be done between now and then will be accomplished with ease and no stress whatsoever.
I have a sacred place that I like to go when life gets a little overwhelming. It's a small pine forest, surrounding the rocky outcropping of a little hill, and would be no different from any other young pine forest, except for the fact that this particular forest is enchanted. It is home to white deer, faeries, and wise owls that sit on the branches during the middle of the day and deliver good advice. It is surrounded by a magic ring that seals it away from the rest of the world, and no worry or trouble can enter. The busy barn below ceases to exist; the cars on the road above don't matter. When you are in the enchanted forest, nothing bad can happen to you.
This forest and I have a long history. It was the turning point in my decision to lease the barn and commit the larger part of my life to it; during a long and tedious property inspection I wandered across the boundary and suddenly knew, although I could hardly claim it as mine, that I needed this forest and this barn in my life. It drew me there like a powerful magnet. Over the next year and a half, as the barn and I both went through some growing pains, I found myself drawn back into the forest again and again. I found that I liked to go there alone, for no one else saw it with quite the same reverence and wonder I did. The faeries and God and I would sit quietly in the sundappled light under the trees and enjoy each others' company, and I never left unchanged.
It was where I first realized, with a start, that I had found someone special and tumbled unawares into love - he saw the faeries, too. Those trees actually witnessed a lot of firsts... and lasts. Even when I thought I could never bear to go up there again, the forest drew me back. It's where I end up when my determination wavers and I just need a good cry. It watched me fall, it watched me shatter, and now it's helping me to mend.
Tonight, just as the sun was going down, one of my students arrived at the barn with her boyfriend. I've known this student for almost five years now and we've gotten pretty close; I've watched her somehow transform from a cute little pig-tailed nine-year-old to a confident and beautiful teenager, growing up much too fast. She told me that she's spent some time alone in the forest lately, and she wanted to show it to Darren. Hand in hand, so very much in love, they walked up the hill and disappeared into the trees together. And I sat by myself on the picnic table in front of the barn and felt just about every emotion at once.
It seems right somehow that the forest should have captured another young heart or two. I feel like something has passed on - a chapter that closed in my life has now opened in hers.
I just wish I understood what my next chapter holds.
FACT: Really good hugs can turn around a day.
FACT: I am officially choreographing a pas de deux to the Twilight soundtrack. Which is just all kinds of ironic.
FACT: I am getting excited about Florida!
FICTION: I am completely on top of things and everything that needs to be done between now and then will be accomplished with ease and no stress whatsoever.
I have a sacred place that I like to go when life gets a little overwhelming. It's a small pine forest, surrounding the rocky outcropping of a little hill, and would be no different from any other young pine forest, except for the fact that this particular forest is enchanted. It is home to white deer, faeries, and wise owls that sit on the branches during the middle of the day and deliver good advice. It is surrounded by a magic ring that seals it away from the rest of the world, and no worry or trouble can enter. The busy barn below ceases to exist; the cars on the road above don't matter. When you are in the enchanted forest, nothing bad can happen to you.
This forest and I have a long history. It was the turning point in my decision to lease the barn and commit the larger part of my life to it; during a long and tedious property inspection I wandered across the boundary and suddenly knew, although I could hardly claim it as mine, that I needed this forest and this barn in my life. It drew me there like a powerful magnet. Over the next year and a half, as the barn and I both went through some growing pains, I found myself drawn back into the forest again and again. I found that I liked to go there alone, for no one else saw it with quite the same reverence and wonder I did. The faeries and God and I would sit quietly in the sundappled light under the trees and enjoy each others' company, and I never left unchanged.
It was where I first realized, with a start, that I had found someone special and tumbled unawares into love - he saw the faeries, too. Those trees actually witnessed a lot of firsts... and lasts. Even when I thought I could never bear to go up there again, the forest drew me back. It's where I end up when my determination wavers and I just need a good cry. It watched me fall, it watched me shatter, and now it's helping me to mend.
Tonight, just as the sun was going down, one of my students arrived at the barn with her boyfriend. I've known this student for almost five years now and we've gotten pretty close; I've watched her somehow transform from a cute little pig-tailed nine-year-old to a confident and beautiful teenager, growing up much too fast. She told me that she's spent some time alone in the forest lately, and she wanted to show it to Darren. Hand in hand, so very much in love, they walked up the hill and disappeared into the trees together. And I sat by myself on the picnic table in front of the barn and felt just about every emotion at once.
It seems right somehow that the forest should have captured another young heart or two. I feel like something has passed on - a chapter that closed in my life has now opened in hers.
I just wish I understood what my next chapter holds.