How it hurts even to write this and recall it. The bridge was there - I was so afraid it would be gone! - looking naked and metallic against the bright stream and the almost white sky. The earth was churned up everywhere and hardened, and massive piles of cedar shreds were steaming whitely in the morning air. Everything was still but for a couple walking down the dirt rubble a hundred yards ahead. I stood on the bridge and remembered.
One year someone put a bird feeder up in a tree beside the bridge and at least 20 different kinds of birds, of all colours, fluttered around it. I used to sit on the bridge and stare east down the river. I could see no buildings anywhere and during those days, Hillside Park was far enough out of my routine and my zone that I felt like I was in a wild, remote place, on a wilderness adventure. I would gaze down the river and imagine a future self, traveling through rugged, remote Northern parks, and feel I was already there, somehow. One day, sitting on the bridge, looking east, I was feeling sad about something, and then I realized how fortunate I was to be finished school and free to loaf idly on a warm summer evening in the woods. I drew this picture, and now I am so grateful to have this record of what was.
Now it was like standing in a clearcut. I stepped over a dirty wooden beam strewn across the dirt at the edge of the bridge, and as I lifted my foot over it, I gazed at it almost numbly, the dirt, the abandonment, the indifference - while not everything is lost, things are being lost all the time. One simply stares at the too white sky, feeling that everything is still very stark and real and beautiful, but desolate, and new, and messy. The past is warmth and light and summer, green leaves and the clock in my grandmother's spare room. The past is a place that seemed wild and yours and eternal, but was really somebody else's to change, unexpectedly, so that you are left with a gaping heart, a solemn gaze, a steady witness, a great love.
I followed the rough dirty path for a little while, looking at the devastation of trees and animal homes and magical nooks, where I once saw a wild turkey and imagined that if I chased it, I would find a Wonderland within the cedars. What was once a curved path was now a straight blast through the forest, unsettling my sense of geography and even my memory of what used to live where now there was only the unestablished air. I stopped to speak with the couple who were walking, and they were explained to me that this was happening not to improve the park (because how could it?) but because there was flooding at the other end of the park, because the sewage pipes weren't big enough, and the city was growing. It is difficult to argue with the desire not to have sewage flooding.
The dirt path became rougher and I simply didn't want to see anymore, I wanted to get out of this wide, gaping space among the far off trees, so I returned to the bridge, crept around the fence blocking it from the north side, and followed the northeast path through the old Revival grounds, where everything was still blissfully ancient and still. This magical, sleepy valley of long grass, ancient oaks and bubbling streams, where once were held tent Revivals, how relieving to see it still dreaming in autumn quiet. At the smaller bridge, I made eye contact with a young woman with short brown hair who looked up from gazing into the stream.
I felt I wanted to leave the woods, although they are the place of such happiness for me. I was shaken by the clearcut and knew that only time would settle me, and it didn't much matter where I spent that time, and I wanted to keep moving. I decided to see how far I could go down Lexington. As I followed this busy road over the highway, past churches and retirment homes and ball diamonds and suburban houses, my mind began to drift peacefully, my body almost empty. Glimmers of fear arose and I watched them, curious, touched, affected, but detached. I felt strong and calm and light and clear. I could see a dark green shadow of pines up ahead, and I knew this meant the entrance to Kiwanis Park. I realized in that moment that it was the next place I most yearned to go, my next Shangri-La. Realizing this, I decided to turn around. I felt good, and I wanted to remember and associate this feeling with this place.
Shortly after turning back, I cycled past a rabbit that had been hit and was dead and bloody by the side of the road. As with all animals that have been killed on the road, I was touched and saddened, and offered a prayer. In feeling for this rabbit, I realized that I felt more for this dead being on the road then I did for the cars, the buildings, the power lines. The little body had become separated from the little soul, but the fur and flesh were still vividly organic, vividly real. I share a commonality with this little lifeless body, and in life, am closer to it in death than to the electric, speeding metals and flashing lights. Commonality - sympathy - that which is shared - space, composition, mind - is love, if one can define love.
Passing the baseball diamond park again, I thought about my best friend, who I haven't spoken with in months, because I hurt her and she hurt me, although all we both wanted was to care for each other and be cared for. I remembered during the first week of University, my second week living in Waterloo, over ten years ago, she had gone off with our new friends and I was supposed to meet them at one of the houses on Lexington road. But when I got there, no one was around, so I went and sat in the ball diamond park and cried and wondered if I would ever feel anything but alone, and how I would survive this strange town. And I realized I already loved this land, and that I would never be completely alone if I could spend time on the earth here. I knew that wherever I went, the land would always be a beloved companion. After a time, I came back to our little basement apartment and found my friend watching Oprah and looking teary. She'd somehow missed meeting up with the crew and thought I was with them and she too was feeling afraid and alone. We laughed and smiled and sniffed and watched Oprah together.
I miss her, like a white, open, too big sky.
