image: flickr, by manyfires
When you go looking for trouble, you will find it. (I found it.) A photo shouldn't make you cry. (typed with tears streaming down my face.) The above picture is of somewhere in the Redwoods.
All the places I love are too far away to renew me.
The photo below made me think about standing in front of my parents' home on clear nights and looking up at the star-filled sky. In the winter with the snow-silenced air between me and the universe, I can always find Orion.
This photo also made me think about the bridge over the Elizabeth River at Yorktown Virginia. The air is not snow-silenced, but warm and muggy. And waves calmly lap the beach. We've seen dolphins out there, a stingray, and one night we watched a crab swimming beside the boat dock. It's a great place. Below, I've written a snapshot of my memory.
The photo below made me think about standing in front of my parents' home on clear nights and looking up at the star-filled sky. In the winter with the snow-silenced air between me and the universe, I can always find Orion.
This photo also made me think about the bridge over the Elizabeth River at Yorktown Virginia. The air is not snow-silenced, but warm and muggy. And waves calmly lap the beach. We've seen dolphins out there, a stingray, and one night we watched a crab swimming beside the boat dock. It's a great place. Below, I've written a snapshot of my memory.
image courtesy of flickr, by manyfires
Tidewater Virginia.
Under the bridge in Yorktown, right across the street from where Nick's used to be. If I'm very still, I can feel the warm, damp air and the feeling that we'll be on the Colonial Parkway soon, whipping past dark, dense woods on our way home. I peer out the passenger window.
photo: flickr
Nick's Seafood Restaurant. Oooooh, man. Nick's had greek statues and silvery-blue ceilings.
Lobster, anyone?
Lobster, anyone?
Another snapshot of a different place I love, the one I've been really, really missing lately:
Oregon Coast.
Ecola State Park. The road through the moss drenched rain forest twists and turns. Up in the tall branches, an owl: silent, still, majestic. On a coastal trail, and the path through the woods is spongey with moss and the mulch of a thousand years' making. Ferns line the path. Old, giant trees protect from the elements. Thick December fog obscures the view of the seemingly-sheer dropoff to the Pacific and the migrating whales.
When you reach the end of that road through Ecola State Park, this is what you'll see.
Ecola State Park. The road through the moss drenched rain forest twists and turns. Up in the tall branches, an owl: silent, still, majestic. On a coastal trail, and the path through the woods is spongey with moss and the mulch of a thousand years' making. Ferns line the path. Old, giant trees protect from the elements. Thick December fog obscures the view of the seemingly-sheer dropoff to the Pacific and the migrating whales.
When you reach the end of that road through Ecola State Park, this is what you'll see.
Do you ever yearn for somewhere else, and if so, where?
P.S. I've begun the Book of Mormon again and I'm positive I should be listening to those verses about not murmuring and complaining. The verse that really struck me: 1 Nephi 18:16
P.S.S. This post was written in parts. The crying was only momentary. It's now Monday, a new week.
P.S.S. I will write about what's going on with us someday and even include anecdotes about my darling children.
6 comments:
I know exactly what you are talking about. As I drive down the congested freeway, I ask myself, "is this really home?" I can't say yes or no. I yearn to live by open fields and quietness; that is where I want to raise my children. Maybe someday, but not today, and today is still good.
beautiful. I'm so tired of smog and pollution. Spring is on it's way! Is it nice to know that everyone as some kind of crap going on?...some are just more open about it.
Kara and Mary, thank you for that validation. Today is still good. I keep thinking things like, "My children need a backyard," or worse, because it is more far fetched right now, "My children need to find sea stars in tide pools." But they don't know. They only know if I'm crazy about them and sweet to them and happy. So, I need to choose the better part. (and get over it!)
About being more open about it--well, my dear, there is a reason I didn't write for so long. I was a basket case far too often in the month of February.
Yes, I yearn for other places. I love Ecola State Park. We've been there many times, and my memories and loves are very similar to yours. I yearn for the smell of wet and moss and evergreen trees. Once when we were home in Oregon Elijah didn't know what moss was, and I felt sad inside, like he was missing out on such a crucial part of his childhood. But I think...we each make our own childhoods. And his is full of playing outside almost all year-round, and sun, and pools, and big blue skies. Pretty good stuff for a kid. And who knows but what it may still be full of moss someday too. :) Hang in there. And don't feel bad for the yearning. It comes from loving things so much. And that's a good thing.
Oh Carrie.
I loved Lindsey's comment. You both are so eloquent it makes me crazy.
"Do you ever yearn for somewhere else?" A million times yes! Not the wet, mossy places like Oregon, but the vast open prairies of huge blue skies and never ending fields of gold.
There's a reason Wallace Stegner is one of my favorite authors: he writes about my favorite places so beautifully it hurts.
But Lindsey's right: we each make our own childhoods. My kids' will be very different than mine, and that's okay. If I can help it, it'll be better.
Lindsey's right about something else, too--you only yearn because you love. You love beautifully. That's something I admire deeply about you.
Miss you!
Carrie, you are a much deeper thinker than I! Yes, I yearn for someplace else. . . Only my someplace is usually not a specific place. The someplace of my daydreams usually takes me away from the cold and gray to sunny skies and warmth. And it's quiet and peaceful, which would indicate no kids, right?
Post a Comment