February 3, 1999 (Wednesday) 11:12pm – 12:50am

[fond remembrances]

It’s just after chamber music rehearsal, late in the afternoon. The sky is partly cloudy, the breeze warm, yet crisp, the sun darting in and out between the billowy clouds. There is a bit of time before dinner and the hill is calling out to me. I start the long (for me) trek from the rehearsal hall, up through the chapel, gazing at the stained glass as I head straight down the middle isle and out through the front doors. I am welcomed by that Sewanee summer breeze again, as I make my way from the chapel to the path that leads to the hill.

I’m enjoying being alone, taking my time – for a change, not having to rush from one practice hall to another, not having to interact with the other students in word or in music I feel the wind against my face as I near the path that leads into the woods, to the narrower path that guides the explorer to the cross on the hill – the highest point in town, and a view that is breathtaking.

The narrow path is challenging. My hands ache from all the walking the 8 weeks demand. The campus is spread out and the only means of travel is by foot. The amount of practicing alone makes everyone’s hands ache, but mine especially throb with an intensity only others who live on crutches would understand. I want to go to this place, this sacred space. The pain is easy to transcend, though, since the goal and resulting reward are greater than words could ever describe.

After a long journey via the winding, constricted path, under low hanging branches and shrubs that project into the trail, I finally arrive at my destination.

It is, indeed, breathtaking.

The dense forest clears at the top of the hill, where the many paths from all directions unite. In the small area that marks the center of those merging paths, like the center of a bicycle wheel where all the spokes come together, is a clearing – a small, but totally open area. A rugged wooden cross marks this sacred, hidden spot. The trees hide its view, but it is there as a marker, as a reminder of the gift that is beauty.

The forest’s composition is varied – from tall, towering pine trees, to budding maples, oaks and elms, to white birch trees that the deer have chewed off all of the bark from the ground up to about four feet. Small white flowers, with large, soft green leaves are scattered all around the trees.

I’m relieved and exhausted by the time I reach the clearing – the cross – but I know I have made it. I set down my crutches on the ground covered with pine needles; I approach the cross, it calls out to me and allows me to use, to steady myself, to lean on as I gaze down the huge, mountainous hill, coated with monumental pine and birch trees, creating a velvety looking carpet with a color so rich that no art could replicate.

I stand there, quietly, exhausted from the hike, but invigorated from the sheer beauty, the overwhelming realization that something greater than humans created this world, created these trees, created the wind that still blows gently, created the hawks and turkey vultures that soar effortlessly over the mountain looking for rodents, created the stillness that can be nothing other than sacred.

After I’ve caught my breath, I hop over to a enormous oak tree, and lean back against its sturdiness. This tree is far older than I, and far wiser too. I find strength and solace in its mere existence. As I lean, I watch the vultures soar on the currents that lift them, move them, helping them travel through space. I am in awe at the effortlessness in which they move, not understanding what it would be like to be able to move so easily, so comfortably.

[From outside of the intensity of my memory, I hear Mark’s voice. It is soft and unwaivering, as always. I remember for a moment, the tension and pain in my shoulders, radiating down my spine – just for a moment. Mark asks if I can feel the breeze. Of course I can. I feel it just as strongly as if my body were actually leaning up against that tree.

Mark asks something about allowing the breeze to move my aura, to move over and through my body and allow the pain in my body to leave as the wind blows it away. I think, ‘I don’t need the wind to blow it away, because when I am there, there is no pain’. When I am there it consumes me and the harshness of reality – of my physical world – escape me, transcending into a world of a higher plane, a world that embodies more good than bad, more joy than sorrow, more comfort than distress.

Mark asked again about the breeze, the wind. Out of seemingly no where, he asked how it would feel if I took off my shirt. Timestamped reality. That memory was locked in from a 15 year olds reality. It surpasses any time or age by its power alone, but when I step back and look at the memory, rather then just experiencing the memory, the timestamp presses firmly into my flesh, reminding me of what the non-surreal life was actually like. I was 15 years old. I was female-bodied. I was unable to walk without crutches. And I was, embarrassingly, an outstanding musician.

"Can you take off your shirt there?" <pause> "Allow the wind to blow through the hair on your body, over your chest, across your shoulders, around your back." I unbutton my oxford and start to pull my T-shirt off over my head. Oh god. A 1982 timestamp brands my flesh, searing and scorching, marking the starkness of my young reality.

Mark’s words echo in my head, "can you take your shirt off there". My oxford was already lying atop of my bookbag which was on the pine needle-covered ground. My T-shirt was untucked from my pants and I felt the bottom of my shirt catch on my breasts as I pulled it over my head and tossed it on top of my oxford. The brand of that timestamp was deeper than I had originally thought. As I watched my T-shirt drop to the ground, I could see the smoothness of my skin, the exhilarating feeling of freedom, that recalcitrant passion of doing something forbidden. I stood there, leaning against that huge tree, without a shirt on, feeling the breeze blow over me.

At 15 I didn’t know it was possible to have a body like I do now. At 31, I am in awe of the teenager who had so much insight, and such a vivid memory. Maybe, like the birds of prey, we can soar together on the thermals to create a new reality and a more lasting memories that withstand and transcend the limits of time.