Where is the most peaceful place you’ve been? Whether in your own backyard or some faraway destination… Right around the time of the Woodward Dream Cruise in August, I feel the need to head out of the city, away from orange construction cones, crowded stores and going from one air conditioned box to another.
I’ve been lucky enough to do some traveling and in terms of peaceful spots, some of the standouts have been Lake Louise in Banff, along the river Avon in Stratford, Canada, the pier around sunrise at Folly Beach, South Carolina during the off season, and sunset at Holland State Park in Michigan in April or May. But the peaceful time very often seems fleeting. I wish I could sink into the peace with a feeling that time has stopped. Instead, the sun comes up or goes down, the river moves on, there is more path to walk …
That is probably my attention span, my yearning for what’s around the bend. Sometimes, though…
Sometimes the universe demonstrates its wicked, dry sense of humor during my search for quiet and stillness. I like to go and wander through Hartwick Pines in Grayling, Michigan. The wind whispers through the old trees on a cool, almost fall afternoon. I can only hear my own footsteps…until the marching band begins to play for Lumberjack Days.
On the walk from my hotel by the train station to the Old Town in Geneva, a bridge stops in the middle for Rousseau’s island. A tiny little space with benches, a statue of the old Philosopher himself and several willow trees. You can hear the water flow by, the quacking of the ducks, contemplate what the man would think about stranded here in the river… until an allergy attack leads to a sudden and uncontrollable sneezing fit and a hasty moving on.
In the Cloisters courtyard at Westminster, you can see the main part of the abbey rise against the sky like a rampart. You can sit on a stone bench and meditate about the monks that paced the yard in silent prayer and spiritual contemplation. You can actually see worn spots in the stones, it has stood there for so long … until a tourist group led by a guy with an umbrella heads down the passageway, his voice booming so that all the group can hear him discuss the history of silence in this place.
I dream that there are empty beaches on a Caribbean island somewhere, scenic turnouts along mountain highways that give you a spanning view of the land below and endless sky above, fields of waist-high prairie grasses and wild flowers that only the wind knows, and streams that fall into clear pools, its tumble the only sound in the wood.
I’ll keep searching, cradling those moments in my memories…and chuckling as the band goes marching by.
Christina's New Deal 