Tag Archives: past

Of Mists and Stones

Posted on by under Guest, Secret Places

We arrive early in the morning, while the mist from the sea is still floating in among the long rows of stones. We can barely see the tops of the trees through the fog. The sky is a dull, opaque gray that blocks out the sun. It is eerily beautiful.

Everything is covered in a thin layer of dew and the air is chilly, chillier than I expected. I wrap myself in the only extra piece of clothing I brought: a red and gold scarf that clashes with my rose-colored shorts and teal sneakers.

No one knows exactly why the stones are standing here or what purpose they served. A local legend, dating back hundreds of years to the Celtic past of the region, tells of Roman soldiers turned to stone by the wizard Merlin.

In my childhood, I was captivated by Celtic stories of priestesses, fertility rites, and the struggle between the feminine spirituality of pagan traditions and the patriarchal religion of Christianity. Stories set in wild forests, on mystical islands, and in big craggy castles enthralled me. Now standing in a field of mysterious stone formations on the Breton coast, I feel like I am walking through those enchanted tales.

This is Brittany.  Stretching out into the Atlantic in northwestern France, Brittany, or Breizh, is one of the six Celtic nations, where Celtic languages continue to be spoken. Its distinct cultural heritage dates back to the early medieval era. We have visited our beloved France before: strolled the cobblestone streets of Paris, rode bicycles through vineyards of Chardonnay and Syrah, basked in the sun of the French Riviera. This is a different France, earthy and untamed.

Here I stand, on the southern shores of Brittany, on the Gulf of Morbihan, in a town called Carnac, known for its Neolithic menhir, or standing stones. There are thousands of stones, dating back thousands of years. Some in long rows, some stacked to form tombs and burial chambers, and others just standing alone, towering, keeping solemn wdscf7070atch, marking time as centuries go by.

The Ménec alignments are eleven rows of stones standing in a grassy field, and that’s where my husband and I wander on this misty morning. At the western end of the field, the stones rise up way above our heads. My husband pretends to hold up a large stone that is tilted toward the ground and I laugh. As we walk along the rows, the stones get smaller and smaller, as if sinking into the soft soil below. At the eastern end, they are barely two feet high.

Later in the afternoon, we walk past a copse of trees, thin spindles of wood, partially covered in lichen, ivy vines snaking up the trunks. The light is ethereal and golden, breaking through the leaves and flooding the area. It feels otherworldly. Even the air feels different, cool but weighty. It is easy to see how legends of wizards and Druids, priestesses and sorceresses came about in this misty place.

And it calls us to slow and observe, to wonder and wander around these stones that stand guard, these trees that cast spells.  It invites us to graze our fingers along the rough edges of stones who have stood on this ground for thousands of years. Go ahead, ask your questions of us and we will tell you all that we have seen.

The stones hold secrets and the trees offer communion and the cool, damp mist coming in from the sea cloaks it all in a mystical magic I had never seen before. We are walking through the present, but also through the past. We are out in the open, but also within the close quarters of ancient whispers.

Here, I am connected with the past, entrenched in it. The history isn’t on display in a museum, kept safely behind glass. It is here, where I can reach out and touch, where I can wander inside it, where I feel the pull of time transporting me back through the centuries. And it leaves me with the incredible impression of magic and legend and secrets, all tucked into the beautiful seashores of northwestern France.

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jywatkinsJamie Y. Watkins is a wife, sister, daughter, and friend. She works at a non-profit by day and goes to school at night, trying her best to find times to write in between. Her biggest passions are travel–France in particular– film, and good conversation. She lives in New Jersey, where she and her husband open their house to others with good food and wine. She blogs at Seek.Follow.Love about wrestling with faith and church, looking for meaning in the every day, and feeling her way through life. Twitter: @jamieywatkins Facebook: @jywatkinswriter

 

The secret lives of messes

Posted on by under Mess & Place

Even before our waiter asks how he should split the bill, I can feel him eyeing us with each visit to our table—trying to suss out our relationships to one another. Our teenage girls had arrived at the restaurant with me and my husband; the four of us were seated at our table for seven about five or ten minutes before the girls’ dad, stepmom, and preschool-aged half brother joined us.

After our plates are cleared, my eldest daughter, whose birthday we’re celebrating, rests her head on her dad’s shoulder as I take a few photos of them, and my husband entertains the little guy, who is blonde like his big half-sisters. I lean toward my girls’ stepmom, who is sitting on my left, to show her the sweetest of the photos I’ve just taken. We “Awww…” together at the expression on the face of this girl we both mother.Version 2

“How would you like the check?” our server asks, his eyes darting around, not sure who exactly to address.

I look at my ex-husband and hesitate—we’ve been known to not gravitate toward the same answers to life’s questions.

“Should we each pay for one of the girls or just split it down the middle?”

“Down the middle seems easiest,” he replies.

When you’re co-parenting and blending families, easiest—when it’s available—is always the right choice.

*   *   *   *   *

The real mess of divorce starts long before the divorce. Emotions become frayed and tangled, territories that used to be shared are sloppily divided and staked, and any path forward that once seemed clear becomes so overgrown with weeds and briars it can hardly be called a path.

Even before the decision is made that one of you has to go, the emotional seed of the mess begins sending out physical roots that can trip you up. But it’s when you actually begin dividing household items—pulling all the cooking utensils out of drawers and spreading them on the counter, attempting to make sure each person has a fairly complete set of tools to see them through the cooking of a meal—that the mess becomes tangible. It can’t be ignored.

There it is, all laid out there on the table before you—every drawer and cupboard emptied, each item evaluated, falling somewhere on the broad spectrum of worth: meaningful, useful, expensive, replaceable, and I-didn’t-even-remember-we-had-that. The process is repeated again and again, room by room. Now every book and CD you jointly own is spread across the living room rug. Then the artwork takes its turn and is divvied up.

Even after he has packed up and moved his share to an apartment he is renting, even after my things have been put away, I’m still faced with all of the things he didn’t bother taking but I don’t want, either.

What I do want is a Dumpster in the driveway. What could feel more decisive and freeing than filling a receptacle big enough to contain all your junk—literal and figurative? Because I realize part of my longing for a Dumpster stems from a desire to clear my life of certain memories and regrets, along with the boxes of odd books and knick-knacks my husband had a habit of picking up at garage sales, thinking they might one day be useful for something.

*   *   *   *   *

A decade later, I know there’s more to a mess than what meets the eye.

IMG_6029The pile of shoes perpetually cluttering our front entryway tells of a home where people feel welcomed and comfortable, of teenagers and their friends coming and going, of volleyball games and dog-walking in the rain.

Clothes all over the bed represent progress—they’re no longer stinky and stained, stuffed in the hamper, they’re clean and fresh, waiting to be folded. Soon enough they will make it to their rightful places in drawers and on hangers, and our bed will be ready to receive us at the end of a long day.

The more cluttered the garage gets with bags of leaves, the cleaner the yard is. It feels like a trade-off in the moment, but each time I navigate around the bags on my way through the garage, they speak of muscle-work done in fresh air, and multiple sets of hands making progress before the sun goes down.

And inside our front door, not far from the perpetual pile of shoes, hangs a painting my ex-husband made of our first house. It still has a place in my home today—not because he painted it or because it was our house, but because he is my daughters’ dad, and it was their first house. The painting hangs where it can help us acknowledge and honor a piece of our past.

Sometimes, I’ve learned, we get to decide what will be messy and what won’t—even without the help of a Dumpster.

Kristin bio YAH

On the threshold

Posted on by under Season & Place

I was born on the threshold of spring—at that moment when winter could just as easily dig in her heels as bow graciously and take her leave.

Over the years, the second day of March has skipped, tip-toed, sloshed, or trudged onto the scene of my life, accompanied by a wide variety of backdrops. Some years, the snow completely melts by then, inviting me to joyfully lace up new sneakers in place of clunky boots, and to take my coffee out to the porch.

I remember one spring-like childhood birthday in particular, because it was nice enough outside to go for a spin on my new birthday bike—a yellow banana seat Huffy with orange and white accents, called “Texas Rose” (bikes came with names back then, written in a suitable font across the chain guard). I still remember the clichéd-but-very-real freedom I felt as I pushed hard on the pedals to pick up speed, the wind lifting my bangs off my forehead and the handlebar streamers blowing back, tickling my arms. Even the puddles, spraying a mist of grimey specks onto my pants, were a joy to whiz through: The sound of bike tires cutting through puddles was the music of spring. Back in our driveway I engaged the kickstand, my Michigan winter legs trembling in response to the sudden demand placed on spring-and-summer muscles.

photo (8)Other years (like this year, for instance), heaps of snow have cruelly set my birthday scene. By early March everyone, of course, is longing for spring, but I tend to take its coy absence personally. I would gladly exchange all my birthday presents for an early departure of winter—for a walk on non-treacherous sidewalks in the sunshine, hat- and mitten-free, with the first signs of daffodils poking up through dead leaves. What could be a better gift than a promise that temperatures won’t fall below 50 again until fall?

unnamed-2Instead, the likely reality in early March is something in between—neither here nor there, winter nor spring. In March you can often find me walking on the north side of the street, where the longer days of south-sweeping sunshine have melted the snow into slushy puddles and coaxed snowdrops, aconites, and crocuses out of hiding.

Soggy grass and brave flowers on one side of the street, dirty piles of snow and icy sidewalks on the other; I walk through March balanced in an awareness of what has been and what is to come.

*   *   *   *   *

As if taking a cue from the month of my birth, I tend to live my life at the intersection of realism and optimism—with an acute awareness of what is, but also a vivid understanding of what could be. The truth of the matter, as well as the hope. The now and the not yet. The lion and the lamb.

I grudgingly see the dirty piles of snow for what they are, but I know they’ll eventually become water to nourish flowers and lush green grass. The messy pile of boots by my front door, and the puddles and salt deposits they leave on the wood floor, will undoubtedly be replaced by sneakers and flip-flops, grass clippings and leaves.

unnamed-3And the weight I feel—whether from so many layers of clothing and gear, or from built-up deposits of worries and regrets—will melt away, just as surely as the clouds will disperse and warmer streams of air will travel my direction, crowding out the chill. Suddenly, one bright morning, I will be able to see again who I am under all those layers of down and wool, and wondering and longing. I will see that I am a new creation, in process, again and again.