Page 131 - ECOlogic Book

Peek Experiences
(Fall, 1997)

I was feeling sorry for myself, ironing on a beautiful spring day. With four kids, in the days
before kids thought it was cool to wear wrinkled clothing, it seemed like I was always
ironing.

I heard the back screen door open, and there was Sarah, my ten year old. She stood
across from the ironing board with a look of absolute radiant ecstasy on her face. I studied
her for a moment before asking, “What happened?”

She answered simply, “The orchard.”

In an instant I understood. The orchard had “happened“ to her, just as a corn field had
“happened” to me when I was ten.

As I write this my eyes fill with tears, as they always do when I remember the day of my
own awakening to a soul connection with the natural world.

Sarah’s route home from school took her through an apple orchard that happened that day
to be in full bloom. I’d been more intentional, a generation earlier, about seeking out a
place where I felt safe and nourished. My special place was a field of chicory and Queen
Anne’s lace next to a corn field, where I rode my bike every evening after drying the dishes,
to watch the sunset. I had done this many times, rewarding myself for having done my
onerous household chores. My recollection is that the dishes would sometimes receive short
shrift in my anxiety to get to the corn field before the sun plunked behind the horizon.

There was nothing unusual about this particular evening. I left my bike by the fence and
waked to my usual place. I sat down in the tall grass the way I always did, hunching into
my knees, and wrapping my arms around my legs. I listened, as usual, for the hush I’d
learned always came – a moment when the birds would go silent and the breeze would
seem to be suspended – a crack between the worlds. Indeed. For this time, when the hush
came, I was it.

I lay on my stomach and sobbed. I wanted only to die in that perfect moment, for to live
was to change, and I wanted to keep the moment forever. I wanted to dissolve into the
earth, become one with her, and disappear into her loving arms. Later, after I’d rolled over
onto my back, I lay watching the sky for a long time. I’d have to live, this was clear. But
I’d have to live now in a different way. I knew, as I lay there, that the rest of my life would
be vectored by this moment; that now everything was different. As I walked back to where
Id left my bike, the Queen Anne’s lace beside the path bowed to greet me. The leaves of
the small trees I passed caressed me tenderly. I do remember that. It happened. The
corn field happened to me.

It would be an event I could not talk about to anyone. Too precious for discussion, I kept it
hidden in my heart for many hears. I remembered that part too, as I looked at Sarah
across from my ironing board, and I knew I must not intrude – that she’d already told me
too much, and that I could do violence by inquiring further, or by relating my own
experience to her.

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