this is a story of land, land and mirrors, land rivers mirrors, family and rhythm. family and remembering, remembering like the dust left on the chalkboard. places and seeing.
I don't really have the words to describe the beauty of the day today, the first warm day of March in my new mountain home in the Ridge and Valley region of Central Pennsylvania, gliding between the Brush and Madisonburg Mountains in Brush Valley . This place is abundantly peaceful in the karst topography covered in deciduous and evergreen forests, flowing exceptional quality streams, ephemeral and ever flowing springs, and soon the coming seeps and vernal pools. I rode my bicycle of the rolling hillside roads and hung my hammock. At the very beginning of my drive up past Sherman's farm into the woods is the suggestion of a trail that leads into hundreds acres of preserved state forest. The forest isimmense and covers over the Madisonburg Mountain to the North. There in the forest is what the ol timers here call, The Indian Fort. Only a pair of a few hunters come to hunt during hunting season, but from what I hear other than that, there are no other people here. I walked into the forest by myself when it was still covered with deep snow and ice, nowhere nearing the top of the mountain, nor the hidden valley of forest nor the Indian Fort. The vastness of the forest was scary to me in a way like wild brown stallion horses.
I had a dream once of this kind of fear. Standing in a meadow nealing beside my mother in this open field at the edge of a forested hillside I saw seven wild large brown stallion horses . The muscles on the dark bodies buldging , their hair flowing backward as they began to flank around the edge of the open meadow. I immediately stood when I saw them appear, not sure what to be ready for. My mother looked to me and asked, "Why are you afraid?"
"THey're so wild."
"Do Not be afraid, they know who your grandfather is.
She meant all the grandfathers.
The horses were a variety of different shades of brown. They started running toward us and I turned around to see what was behind us. There was a low lying circular building. I didn't know what it was for certain but sensed that it was a sacred space. The front horse began to rear and as it did so did the other horses begin to shapeshift into tall and beautifully gorgeous dredlocked men of all shades, standing as seven men beginning to enter the door of the sacramental building behind me. My mothers words in my head again, "they know who your grandfather is." I reached for the door to enter the building and the door was one large mirror. I stood before it, looked myself over clearly focusing, a pure reflection of my self. (1)
This part is not a dream.
My grandpa Nelson Tracy was actually my mother's grandpa, but he lived until I was around ten years old. I remember him, his face, his chair, his laughter, and the smell of his pipe. I remember him and my Grandpa Miller the farmer and carpenter walking through fields and along forests. Grandpa Tracy was Native American , the son of two people and a connection to the thousands of stories written on the walls, and so many more stories outside the walls. Generations of wisdom and ways of knowing. The rivers and trails, the garden, his mother and father and those that came before them. All of these stories, written on the walls and outside were erased, like a chalkboard at the end of the school day. Granpa Tracy's mother murdered his father by putting arsenic in his coffee. Nelson and all his brothers and sisters were seperated and entered into the foster care system, their mother in jail and their father dead.
None of the stories were embraced, told, or explored. I write these words to remember.
hat stitches together
I don't really have the words to describe the beauty of the day today, the first warm day of March in my new mountain home in the Ridge and Valley region of Central Pennsylvania, gliding between the Brush and Madisonburg Mountains in Brush Valley . This place is abundantly peaceful in the karst topography covered in deciduous and evergreen forests, flowing exceptional quality streams, ephemeral and ever flowing springs, and soon the coming seeps and vernal pools. I rode my bicycle of the rolling hillside roads and hung my hammock. At the very beginning of my drive up past Sherman's farm into the woods is the suggestion of a trail that leads into hundreds acres of preserved state forest. The forest isimmense and covers over the Madisonburg Mountain to the North. There in the forest is what the ol timers here call, The Indian Fort. Only a pair of a few hunters come to hunt during hunting season, but from what I hear other than that, there are no other people here. I walked into the forest by myself when it was still covered with deep snow and ice, nowhere nearing the top of the mountain, nor the hidden valley of forest nor the Indian Fort. The vastness of the forest was scary to me in a way like wild brown stallion horses.
I had a dream once of this kind of fear. Standing in a meadow nealing beside my mother in this open field at the edge of a forested hillside I saw seven wild large brown stallion horses . The muscles on the dark bodies buldging , their hair flowing backward as they began to flank around the edge of the open meadow. I immediately stood when I saw them appear, not sure what to be ready for. My mother looked to me and asked, "Why are you afraid?"
"THey're so wild."
"Do Not be afraid, they know who your grandfather is.
She meant all the grandfathers.
The horses were a variety of different shades of brown. They started running toward us and I turned around to see what was behind us. There was a low lying circular building. I didn't know what it was for certain but sensed that it was a sacred space. The front horse began to rear and as it did so did the other horses begin to shapeshift into tall and beautifully gorgeous dredlocked men of all shades, standing as seven men beginning to enter the door of the sacramental building behind me. My mothers words in my head again, "they know who your grandfather is." I reached for the door to enter the building and the door was one large mirror. I stood before it, looked myself over clearly focusing, a pure reflection of my self. (1)
This part is not a dream.
My grandpa Nelson Tracy was actually my mother's grandpa, but he lived until I was around ten years old. I remember him, his face, his chair, his laughter, and the smell of his pipe. I remember him and my Grandpa Miller the farmer and carpenter walking through fields and along forests. Grandpa Tracy was Native American , the son of two people and a connection to the thousands of stories written on the walls, and so many more stories outside the walls. Generations of wisdom and ways of knowing. The rivers and trails, the garden, his mother and father and those that came before them. All of these stories, written on the walls and outside were erased, like a chalkboard at the end of the school day. Granpa Tracy's mother murdered his father by putting arsenic in his coffee. Nelson and all his brothers and sisters were seperated and entered into the foster care system, their mother in jail and their father dead.
None of the stories were embraced, told, or explored. I write these words to remember.
hat stitches together
