The anxiety brought about by watching the nation descend into bitterly partisan chaos has not been easy to bear. The usually reliable remedies have not worked. The brisk walks along the shore of Budd Inlet … hampered by breathing through a cotton mask. Mental busywork like cataloging 245 guidebooks to British heritage sites … too easy to listen to NPR reports of voter suppression. Meditative yoga stretches or visiting the weights-only gym … gave me a charley-horse that only helped keep me wakeful. And if awake … ruminating on what I would do if faced with four more years of intolerant, incoherent and ruinously divisive Republican rule.
For many months, I’ve kept my heart up by picturing a restorative day at White Eagle Memorial Preserve. Visiting my Timothy’s poetic resting place among the pines and oaks would be my reward for slogging through months of clearing out his old office. (Only part of which contents actually belonged to him. There were boxes and boxes of my late father’s cookbooks and my dear mama’s crafts projects, too.) The All Souls Day gathering of friends and family members makes community of strangers, brought together by our common loss and our love of the land.
Except this year, the community would be scattered by winds of coronavirus. White Eagle sensibly cancelled the event to prevent possible spread of the disease among people sitting elbow to elbow around the fire circle. I couldn’t bear the thought of going without a visit for another six months, and begged for permission to visit. To my great relief, they said yes. Knowing I would soon see the Horse Heaven Hills buoyed me over all the worries of the last weekend before the election.
Alone but not lonely…
That’s the slogan on an enameled pin I wear on my heavy, thorn-proof jacket. It was strangely apt for my day at White Eagle. I saw one man walking his dog near the round-house when I arrived, three lads in a pick-up truck arriving as I was leaving. Otherwise, no one for the four hours I spent on the land.
I first poured Timothy his favorite cocktail — a vodka on the rocks (the headstone and footstone) — and listened to the music of his funeral service as I sat beside him at the edge of the meadow. A gobbling of turkeys deemed me harmless enough to parade past on the road. Otherwise, but for Paul Winter’s plangent “Lay Down Your Burden,” the place was close to silent, the wind barely twitching the treetops.
After drying my eyes, I put on Tim’s leather work gloves and set to thwarting some bitterbrush that still crowded the head of his grave. I took some photos of a pretty location for a rustic bench Charlie and I keep talking about giving to the Preserve. Later, I ambled down the dirt road to the site I’d picked out for my parents and Dad’s sister, Helen, close to the camas meadow. The big pruning loppers made short work of another couple of bitterbrush, while a twittering of small, unseen birds offered commentary from the shrubbery.
Asking for the land’s blessing
As the sun westered, I remembered that I had given myself one last task to perform for All Souls Day. I trudged back up the lane to the eagle gate, juggling gloves and loppers and camera. Turning a bend, I was suddenly stopped in my tracks by the brilliant sparkle of sunlight pouring through the stained glass in the arch.
Heartened, I stowed the tools in my car, and retrieved a bottle of water, a box of matches, and a tiny sage smudge. (Yes, I was a bit thirsty, but the water was mostly for fear I should set the woods ablaze with my sage.)
Kneeling by the cold remains of earlier fires, I slowly looked around the stone circle. My mind’s eye conjured the circle of warmth and kindness I’d found in the two All Souls Days gone by. As we did before, I did today, representing all those who could not be there with me. I lit the smudge and held it aloft as I read two poems from Tim’s service. Then I recited the names of those I’ve lost — grandparents I knew and those I didn’t, my father and aunt, workmates Tom and Sara and Steve and Debbie, the extended family of grief — and recalled to the trees those passed whose names I did not know.
Finally, I remembered what S. said about how those who have gone before us sometimes help us with what we need in our lives here on earth. And so, as the sage smoke blurred my eyes, I asked for peace, truth and justice for all of us alive and hurting in our riven country. All of us waiting, with breath held, to see what one more week would bring, and hoping it was healing not despair.
Beautiful.
Lovely Laura.