Places of Power

A seriously bad day in a seriously bad season... and the busyness in my head needed to be calmed.

I am not religious, but I believe there are benefits to the outward forms of ritual, retreat, and reflection. So I went off the air and did what I needed to do to get centered and calm. There is no grave for my sister, and so when I need to commune with her, I need to go to a still place in my mind where I can sense her quiet presence. Too jangled to sit and meditate, what I need is outdoor exercise. And I need to write.

I have places I go to do this, and they are my places of power. One of my favorites is Great Falls National Park, just 20 minutes from my house. So there I was, on this grey, raw morning, as it spit rain from time to time.  I fled my life and all its complications, needing to just be for a while.

I needed to walk and walk and walk. No facebook, no email, no tunes. Just me and my feet. And the camera.  My thoughts flitted from bad things at work, to the still raw loss of Mary, to current teen angst. Three hours of walking, along the C&O towpath, never far from the roaring hurricane-swollen Potomac. Gradually, the stress in my body and mind began to wear away, as I tired myself out.

I am never away from my camera, and it helps focus me.  Truly, puns aside. I am not seeking the pictures as I walk, but when they find me, I lose myself in the process. Compose, adjust the exposure, recompose, move two steps to the left, change the aperture, hold the camera tilted up, go for a different shutter speed... My camera is a pocket camera easily fitting in one hand, but with total manual control, and I lose myself in it. On my way back, the path over the rapids to overlook the falls themselves had been opened up, and I was totally awestruck. The flow was there, at the end of the walk, as I struggled to capture the force and power of the falls with a still camera. I was finally taken completely out of myself, and was just in that moment.

I picked this place today because it is also connected to Mary.  This is one of her favorite family photos, taken on a great hot summer day in this park.You can't tell, but Mary is pregnant with Clara here (so she is actually in this picture, too!)

I've been here to mourn Mary before as well - this was taken on her birthday in February 2010.

Once I got back to the car, I wrote quite a while, talking things through with her. I was much better equipped to have what was a really crucial conversation about college with my our boy afterwards. It really was all about him, and not about me any more.

And I tracked, too.