I wanted to bring this over here because it is that good..
Have a great weekend..
Andrew -
Did you ever make that trip to OBX to see your daughter? If so, how did that go? If not, when does it come up? I spent my summers growing up there, on the Pamlico sound where my grandparents lived. I am older now and have traveled a bit - other countries, to my mother's heritage in Germany a few times, central America, the Caribbean...my favorite place has been the Florida Keys - many visits. But in my mind, those dunes, the seabirds, the tall tired grasses, and the impossible access of the North Carolina Outer Banks is forever my spiritual home.
I don't live far from there now, close enough to go there for breakfast, stay to dinner, and be back home to sleep. One of the most insular things my spouse did to me was to make that location her weekend getaway for her A. It crushed me, and this is putting it lightly. I have come so far, but the idea of such an adult betrayal embedded in the midst of possibly, if not the only place my childhood mind felt peace from the sustained abuse I generally experienced - well, you can imagine the mental trespass my spouse committed. Knowing I felt this way, I began taking trips to the OBX with my son despite how I felt. I had to do something which made it my own again and I wanted to hopefully build something for him.
The first time I went there after (mostly) knowing what my wife was up to - I felt so lonely. It was January/February of 2016, the wind can be so brutal over those isthmi and those islands in winter. We were hiking the dunes and went to the sound side for some restitution from the chill - much warmer there in the afternoon sun. My son had our dog and was playing with him. I sat under a live oak which was drowning in the glacial movement of sand. I wept. I mean like a f-ing child, if not arguably worse. My son did not see it, for which I was glad, not b/c a grown man was crying, but b/c I wanted that place to be happy for him.
In the time since, I have taken it back. Not by frequent visits, I have only been there about three times (and all with my son) since January/February. I took it back in my mind. And how I did is so eerily opposite of the words you have chosen for this thread: "lost in the woods"
Andrew - You trust me by now, I trust. My better posts (I think, others are the judge of that) tend to have some help embedded in stories or narrative from my life as opposed to straight up advice, so I hope you get this now. Above, that is true. That sukced so horribly for me to write, b/c I had never actually solidified what I did with those memories of how bad I was hurt regarding my spouse and that location, which is only geographic, but means so very much more in my mind. But I was very much aware I had to reclaim, even before I found DB, this need was instinctual. My point being, more importantly relating, to all of your chosen imagery bout paths and being lost in the woods...
Buddy, my canuck brother, if you know the terrain you don't need a path. You can't get lost in those woods if they are your own. I know the dunes, grasses, and waterways of those barrier lands so well that they are like the skin on my hands - and nobody gets to take that away. Whether the 'woods' you speak of are euphemistic or a real place, are they yours? If so, fk that path buddy, you do not need it, you know the land.
For what its worth, the above is what I felt compelled to offer. Till the next time, leave some footprints brother.
