About five or six years ago, we started coming regularly to East Texas from Dallas to clear off our property, the part of the family farm my mom was born on that she gave to me. So many trees, so many creek beds – dry and wet – and so many places for me to explore as, surely, my mother had done before me. Although Richard and I have cleared out many, many trees, the area remains what one would call a forest.
Immediately to the east of where we determined we’d eventually place our home is a wide, deep, low place. When my mom lived here, she said they grew cotton down there. But that was more than eighty years ago. The family left the farm after my grandfather died in the early 30’s. About the only thing that will grow there now is mushrooms. It is an earthy space, canopied by tremendous trees, a space that feral hogs and deer and armadillos and possums roam. It is damp and dark and musky. And I adore it.
It is one of the few places on the whole former farm where I “get a feeling.” I’m not sure I can explain that. The same thing happened to me when I visited Chichen Itza and entered the site for the first time. I was filled with a knowing. A feeling that I was somehow connected to the space. It was not in the least bit an ominous feeling. It was a heady, powerful, giddy feeling. Like the kind you get when you’re coming home after a long absence and you know it’s where you belong. That’s what I feel when I look out over my special space, and when I descend to ramble around and make my presence known, the feeling gets stronger.
It is there that I met my friend the ghost – an ancient sycamore tree. Amidst all the towering pines, the lush oaks, the winged elms – the deep, dark green ocean created by all those inhabitants – the stark white trunk of the sycamore stood out like a giant ghost. A towering, glistening presence to be venerated. It welcomed me every time I arrived and walked to my favorite spot where the sycamore stood. It was a beacon and a beckoning. I could just have easily named it the Siren given how it called to me. Called to me every time – every time we arrived.
A few years ago when we arrived from Dallas to spend the weekend in the woods, we parked the truck, turned on the pump for the water well, and headed out to stretch our legs -- Richard in one direction and I in another. I headed through the woods to my special place where my shimmering, ghostly friend resided. Where my Siren stood.
Stood.
Such a sad word.
Sad because the towering sycamore stands no more. Sometime while we were away this last time, the ghost gave up the ghost. I hope she went over gently. Or perhaps I hope she went over like the biggest explosion ever, loudly crashing her magnificent presence all the way to the ground. Either way would be fitting in its own way.
I’ve lost my friend. My ghost. The strong, tall, majestic, old sycamore. And “coming home” is not going to be the same for quite some time.
No comments:
Post a Comment