A few years ago I got it into my head to return to the western Massachusetts town I’d long lived in when first I moved north from Florida in 1980. To revisit places and people precious to me. To remind myself (and to savor anew) of all that had happened in my years there. It was one of the best gifts I ever gave myself. And how very timely it was to end up being.
We do not have forever to do — to revisit — things and people that have mattered, that have shaped us into who we are now.
Nor is this something to be entertained only by your elderly self. Maybe you’re quite young. But there’s always some cherished past, if you slow down enough to reflect on it. Places you associate with a certain era in your life. Maybe it was painful stuff, or perhaps where some reckoning occurred, or where you finally felt something you’d never allowed yourself to feel before (excruciating love, anger, regret, longing).
This is all about granting your beloved self the space to feel, to reckon with, what you have experienced in your life that has deeply mattered. No, it’s not “living in the past.” It’s about giving major things their due, maybe for the first time. Yes, it’s tricky business to differentiate between going back in time in order to savor and deeply feel, on the one hand, and on the other getting stuck there. Learn to discern the difference. (Maybe you already know what I mean.)
* * *
When I decided to go for it, to take several days to bring it all into being, it was some years after a dear friend of mine had died. So one place I went was to her home. I lingered there, recalling all the sweet times Mary and I had had there, the meandering walks up her road. I drove to see the place where I’d worked for a few years, trying mightily to prevent nuclear war. I was the assistant to the national head of the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign. It all meant so much to me, the pressure so extreme, that one day I found myself crumbling in the face of it all, unable to function. I had to leave my job for a time.
The building where it all happened was at the top of the same hill holding a lovely cabin. I’d gone to stay there over the course of many years when I needed a place of respite, or a chance to do some writing. There had also been significant reckonings in the cabin, turning points in my life. I went inside, sat, lingered. Oh it was glorious, every inch of it (even if it reminded me of some anguished times there).
And I wanted to see the house where I’d first lived when I moved north. I’d had a delightful landlady who became a dear friend, introducing me to all-things-New England. But the major incentive to go back there was that it had been the setting for a love that turned my life inside-out (and would, for decades afterward). I also drove to the graveyard where my landlady has long rested. I wanted to be with her, but I also wished to feel again the rapture I’d experienced ages before, when I’d come to an exhilarating clarity about a change my life was taking.
I drove to say hello to the beloved veterinarian I’d had years before. He lit up when he saw me, took me into his arms. We spoke of my beloved dogs and cats and rats that he’d taken such good care of. I also went to visit the long-ago National Coordinator of the Freeze Campaign. We hadn’t seen one another in so many years we couldn’t count them. He and I had shared experiences, all those years before, that no one but us could have understood: the intensity of our nonstop effort to prevent a nuclear holocaust (more than once we saw the sun rise, having been at it all night). He confided in me something he’d never told another soul. When I first arrived and he saw me there, he wrapped me in his arms and wept. It had never been this way with us, all those years ago. What a joy it was.
One oh-so-moving thing that occurred was that he’d long supposed I’d judged him for something. But I had not! You should have seen the relief spread over his face.
He was to die not long after. (See above about the timeliness of my visit.) How grateful I was — and am — that I went when I did. We do not have forever for such things.
* * *
But the place I wanted to see again that meant the most of all these things was the spot on a road where I’d come to know I wanted more than all other things to become a mother. How it had caught me utterly off guard, at the age of 28, when something in me had long supposed I might not enter the world of motherhood. I’d been driving around when first I moved north, becoming acquainted with my new world, when I happened upon a mama cow who had just that moment given birth. I was stunned. Pulled over, got out, and stood to watch as she ran her enormous raspy tongue over the newborn’s sticky body. Dangling from the mama’s backside was the remnant of the sac that had held her baby, amniotic fluid running down the backs of her legs. The wee being kept falling over as its mother licked it clean. I could barely breathe, the sight was so dear.
It was inevitable that I would one day give birth, and so I did — not once, but twice. The two best things I ever did. So of course, on that yummy day of going back to see those places that I’d never forgotten, I would park my car by that field, and remember. (And anyhow, I am a Holstein: that was my mother’s maiden name. 🙂)
One more thing comes to me, and maybe this will remind you of something kindred in your own experience. There was an apology I’d meant to make to someone on whom I’d inflicted a great deal of pain many years prior. The precipitating event had been unavoidable (regarding my decision for us to part ways). I never regretted what I had done. Still, in recognition of the suffering he’d experienced in its aftermath, I wanted to let him know how sorry I was. When I finally — decades later — came around to telling him, it meant all the world to him. If I’d had any idea, of course, I’d have told him ages before. Our relationship nowadays is quite wonderful.
So you just never know. And (have I mentioned this lately?) you don’t have forever.
Are there things whispering to you? If it matters, do it, my friend. You’ll be glad you did. Think of it as a way of honoring your beloved self.