return to place

As I walked to the Brooks Estate I thought of its history: a preservation land with roots to the first Puritan settlers in 1660 (I wonder what Native American tribe was there before?).  Since its inception the estate has dwindled, sold off by ancestor after ancestor.  More recently the battle had become one between Brooks preservation and Oak Grove Cemetery.  I thought: when I die throw my ashes in the Brooks Pond, a more appropriate place of burial.   Allow my monument to be the images that remain, signifying my vision - better than any tombstone.

I circled all three ponds today in snow often to my knees.  I thought - how would you explain this beauty to a child - a child who grew up with the over-saturated media blitz of television, video games and internet.   It's a sensitivity to the unembellished detail that's needed.  An ability to look at nature and find within its often tangled branches and inconvenient places a symmetry, detail or beauty that transcends the flashy stimuli of modern culture.  A return to place and "here and now".