The Places We Love Most

 

(Source)

There is a place in the far Northwest of California the runs along the coast where at one time, military bunkers were installed.  I cannot completely tell you the place now and the pictures and names I look at do not look familiar to me, but I would know it in an instant if I were to see it again.

That spot was the last time I took a trip with three of my college friends.

Two were my roommates from college, one a young lady that we had all more or less taken up as one of our own.  We hiked in along the coast, spent the night, then hiked out the next day.  I say hiked; these days likely I would have called it a day trip.

But there was a moment here, a moment of passing that was not reflected in any of the other activities of graduation or moving or traveling on would reflect in the weeks ahead. 

It was not that this was home.  But it set with me that for all the change that was coming forward that we had enjoyed two wonderful years living together (at least the three guys as college roommates).  It was a marker, a place to both say goodbye to and go out from.

---

There are places that figure in my life because of my memories and associations there:  my house growing up, my grandparent's house in town, The Ranch, even my hometown.  Those hold a lot of joy and memories for me as the represent the people that were there as much as any other thing about it.

But there are other places as well, places that were not necessarily "people" based but I can see and feel them even how, places that somehow grounded me at points in my life.

The woods behind my best friend's house during middle school where we ran amuck as young boys should, tearing through the forest, building forts, camping out.  The Director's House in high school, where I spent many a day (and night) in harmless shenanigans and planning as the world was our oyster at the time.  The track around my hometown high school, where Usidean Ruadh and I would walk for hours and hours, talking about everything and anything under the sun.

Sometimes it was - or is - the streets around the places I lived, where I could walk and think and allow my emotions to work themselves out.  A Rabbit Shelter, where I felt useful every Sunday no matter what the week was like.

Places that gave me some sense of belonging to someone or something, places to turn where the universe felt cold and uncaring.

---

Not every place is like that of course; there are a score of work locales that have merely been places that I exchanged time for labour, churches where the relationships were deep but I moved on due to a change in location, the "favourite" restaurant that - for various reasons - was not longer visited.  There are memories there too of course, often good ones.

But never the sort that reminded me of the rather important point that somehow I was grounded, that I belonged.  

That, as the quote says, I was never as lost as I believed.