Our men’s group met last week. We span four decades, and it was the arc of our chronology that dominated our dialogue. Whatever our respective ages, we face the unknowns that accompany walking into that landscape for the first time.
Three of us are in the “sandwich” years, directly caring both for children and parents. Two are exploring what it means to retire and when. Two have done so. Each of us dances with our partners in ever-evolving relationships. None of us has ever been here before.
Always the task beckons: how do we define ourselves within the unknowns of each stage of life? What insights and perspectives do we bring forward from the past to guide us? What baggage do we leave behind? What are the treasures of this time to embrace and the trolls to beware of?
As each member of our group has chosen to live where we do in a small town near lakes and hills and remote forests, the words of Wendell Berry resonate, reminding us of the adventures to which life calls us.
Always in big woods when you leave familiar ground and step off alone into a new place there will be, along with the feelings of curiosity and excitement, a little nagging of dread. It is the ancient fear of the unknown, and it is your first bond with the wilderness you are going into. What you are doing is exploring. You are undertaking the first experience, not of the place, but of yourself in that place. It is an experience of our essential loneliness; for nobody can discover the world for anybody else. It is only after we have discovered it for ourselves that it becomes a common ground and a common bond, and we cease to be alone.
sacredlead 