Returning

In which the newsletter returns to ponder the nature of returning.

I can’t remember the last time I climbed a tree. Yet at one point it was much a part of my day to day life as driving or making tea.

My childhood home was technically in the D.C. suburbs of Maryland, but our small town was just far enough and agricultural enough to feel like it was in the country. Our neighborhood was surrounded by cornfields on one side, and backed up to a patch of woods and the extensive grounds of a nursery on another that provided endless opportunities for exploration and imagining.

I didn’t have to leave the yard to find trees however, and I came to know each one so well that I can still vividly call to mind the feel of each one.

A stocky ornamental cherry tree was the ideal entry-level climbing tree. The broad sturdy, trunk was low enough to the ground for even the smallest child to alight, but provided ample foundation for the thick branches to grow in all directions. These branches were smooth and glossy, laced with striations that left some kind of powdery pollen when brushed up against. In the spring the tree burst into bloom and ascending its branches felt like entering a blizzard soft pink.

Eventually I graduated to the larger maples in the side yard, a feat that required some gymnastics. The lowest branches of these fell just above my head. I would grab onto the branches and hang sloth-like while walking my feet up the rough trunk and hoisting myself onto the first branch. I became a keen cartographer of these trees, and could lead the more daring of my friends high aloft to the various nooks and sitworthy branches within.

A brief pause to note that being friends at 40 with people you once sat in trees with is a marvel and a gift indeed. I’m realizing this in real time and thankful to know this from experience.

I can still remember the triumph of summiting the Japanese maple on the other side of the house. This tree held some mystique as the leaves were a rich burgundy, and its branches felt particularly shrouded. This tree was generally too small for two people, but I managed to haul a canvas bag of library books into the branches and disappear into the pages of the book.

I’ve been thinking a lot about her lately. Her: the 9 or 10-year-old girl with overalls and a ballet bun in a tree with a book. As I get older, I’ve noticed a returning to things I had forgotten I once loved. Some ways are more profound, but some are quite simple, like knitting, Gilbert and Sullivan, guinea pigs, ballet, classical music, and aspiring to live off the land.

I’ve been really hard on myself my whole life, but I’m learning now to look back on that version of myself with a lot of care and see what wisdom she carried. At around 13 or 14 I really started to lose touch with her and the most unrecognizable version of myself manifested for the next 10 years.

Whether correlation or causation, losing touch coincided with my increased involvement in the youth group of the-church-I-don’t-speak-of, a non-denominational megachurch with a controlling monoculture that cultivated a hypervigilant fear of misstep in me and marginalized many who didn’t measure up. This only worsened when I worked there after college, desperate for the approval of everyone. At one point, I remember a guy I liked asked me what I did for fun, and I was at a loss for words as I desperately calculated for the answer he would most want to hear. I genuinely didn’t know.

My brother’s death when I was 24 broke the spell of that place for me, and began the long journey of learning to know God as a Being of love, beauty and gentleness instead of whatever that was.

That’s also when I became a teacher, started graduate school, nestled into a loving, thriving, whimsical community of–wait for it–Presbyterians, and slowly started to peel back the layers of inauthenticity that had become a protective mechanism for years.

While that former church is an easy target to blame for this lapse, I’ve heard and read similar realizations from others my age. Perhaps there’s something universal about losing touch with authenticity when the teenage years approach. Other people’s opinions grow disproportionately, even people whose opinions shouldn’t matter.

Why did I care so much about the American Eagle logo being on my shirts? Or getting the right Bath and Body Scent? (Sweet Pea) Seeing the latest movie everyone is quoting? Pretending to be excited about playing mafia for the 57th time? These are just silly teenager things. It’s worth noting that I do have a lot of happy memories from those years that, in hindsight, don’t feel authentic to myself. Two things can be true.

But given what was lost during those years of blending in and camouflage, I do see more clearly now why so many coming of age stories have a particular moment of sadness and leaving behind–leaving Neverland, Narnia, Wonderland, Oz, the Land of Sweets from the Nutcracker.

I’m now at the age of being more curious about these characters later in life. J.M. Barrie gives us a glimpse at this concept of returning as Wendy meets Peter once more at the end of the book when he takes her daughter Jane to her own Neverland adventures.

“If only I could go with you!” Wendy sighed.
“You see, you can’t fly,” said Jane.
Of course in the end Wendy let them fly away together. Our last glimpse of her shows her at the window, watching them receding into the sky until they were as small as stars.

I wonder what Wendy pondered after that as she stood alone in the nursery looking at the stars. I wonder how the act of remembering transformed the moments and years that followed.

A few pieces from the last two months…

A local high school theater celebrates 30 years and demonstrates the value of funding arts education.

One of my favorite choral traditions–Lessons and Carols!

I spent some time with a third-generation local cobbler and his wife learning about the trade as he seeks to pass on the profession to a new generation.

This former police offer started a recovery house for women after the death of his daughter from an overdose. Now the story is being adapted for a forthcoming film starring Zach Braff.

One of my new favorite places to visit was once highly classified and top secret.

Two remarkable women making a difference in their community: one who started a transitional living home for women to be able to care for their children while in recovery and one who started a center providing resources and mental health support for those experiencing perinatal loss, pregnancy-related mental health struggles and more.

Since many of us on the east coast are currently awaiting the snowfall, here is some lovely Robert Frost.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.