places

I have said before that time doesn't heal, but maybe places do.  Being away for almost three weeks unexpectedly gave me a respite from waking up in pain.  It's not that I was happy, but the pain I felt was mostly dulled.  Maybe because I had only happy memories of my son there as a child.  Maybe I didn't feel his absence, because he hadn't been there in years anyway.  I don't know.  But, as I came back I was acutely aware that there is no reason for me to come back here, no one to come back to.

I also went to a place where I thought I could scatter his ashes.  He had talked of the mystery of our mountains and how he felt tied to that land.  It is a beautiful and spiritual place, with seven lakes at the summit of a mountain, where people gather in mid-summer to dance.  The top two lakes, which I couldn't reach, because the weather turned to rain and fog are named the Eye and the Tear.  The Tear is the highest one.  I thought I would lay him down there, and I would go into the Eye one day.  But, I don't know now.  He didn't seem to belong there, in calm waters.  It is the sea that must take him, because it rages and covers the world.  I will go back to the place he liked, the one that claimed him and see if he belongs there.