Memories Monday

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

--Wendell Berry

I did not expect, as a parent, to feel so much fear, so much of the time -- fear of what could overcome Mirthe and Anna, fear of what my life would be like if anything should ever happen to them. Car accidents. Kidnapping. Crib death. Loneliness. Failure to achieve something they really want. Those kind of things.

I think fear is probably my primary emotion as a parent and that saddens me. I try to let the girls go, try to let them make mistakes, get hurt, stand up and try again -- but it is so hard. And the world outside, over which I have no control -- how can I let something go which isn't mine to control?

The last year that I lived in McBain I would take a walk every day around 4Pm, out on Cemetery Road and then at the crossing make a right up the big hill (Geers Road? I'm not sure of the name anymore.) It was beautiful there, quiet but not desolate. One spring day I saw a man standing by the side of the road, looking out into the field. As I got closer I followed his gaze but saw nothing special -- just the same waving grasses and trees I saw everyday. I asked him what he was looking for. He made a shhh quiet sign and pointed out into the field, where it began to go uphill. And then I saw what he saw -- a fox, with three young foxes playing in and around what was probably their den. I gasped, it was so unexpected and so beautiful. The man walked on and l stayed to watch, but the parent fox caught sight (or smell) of something (me, or the man) and reeled the young in. They disappeared in the grasses, and although I often looked in that direction while walking up the hill, I never saw them again.

I'll never forget the sight of that fox, keeping watch over its young. The memory of that moment has always stayed with me, and I use it as my "peace of wild things" place, as we don't have too many places like that here in the south of Holland. I cannot physically enter that place, cannot be there again with the foxes, but I think of it often. And for a time I too can rest in the grace of wild things, and be free.