The Boathouse in the USA

I have always appreciated a good metaphor, and when I need to reflect, it only seems fitting to be near a body of water. It was May 7^th of 2012, possibly one of the worst days I have ever lived. Yet it was beauteous outside. I couldn’t go to work, not with the realization that I was getting divorced so fresh in my heart and head. No, more than anything I needed to be by that ragged little boathouse behind Hawthorne’s Old Manse, looking deep into the Concord River for some clarity and solace.

 

The way there is unassuming, a wildish grassy path borders the historic house, revealing a line of taciturn stones and a spacious yard dotted with trees. It smells like May, the air is fresh and not yet humid, fragrances of flowers travel on the breeze like bands of gypsies. Past the yard, the ground grows bumpy. Stones imbedded in the dirt make me unsteady, like walking on sand rippled by water. It grows damper and I can taste the earth with each breath. There is a canopy of trees that ends in one majestic specimen rooted by the edge of the water. A guardian of the dock, his silent message is “Come forth only if you will respect this place, sit in quiet meditation, and do not linger beyond your need.” At least, this is what I imagine he would say if ever a mouth were to form in his cracked bark.

The boathouse itself is a plain, wooden building, but that’s not why I go there. I slip off my shoes and old planks are rough against my soles, the threat of a splinter always close. I sit with feet dangling over the edge and stare at the divine view, as that is the only word I can think of to describe it. Across the water, rests the Old North Bridge, beyond it another trail with meadows that leads to the Buttrick Mansion. That such a serene place was once the scene of so much violence and death never ceases to amaze me, but you wouldn’t know it sitting there, listening to birdsong and the laughter of tourists as they interact with the colonial actors. It is this cyclical resilience that makes life worth living, that something can evolve from bad to good over time, that new memories can coax pain into a smaller and smaller version of itself until something altogether different emerges. It is the same way that the seasons turn over and nature resurrects itself each year.  A calmness seeps into me as I watch the scene before me mirrored in the water. It is all blue, green, sun-filled and alive.

It is my life turned upside down, but still beautiful.

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