My Haven

I stared out over the shimmering waters of the pond as I had thousands of times as a child. Watching the ripples from a recent fish jump slowly march across the unimpressive girth of the water. It was a small pond, outside a small town in the middle of nowhere. Absolutely nothing has changed in the twenty years since I last sat in this spot. Nothing but me. I had exchanged my small posture for a few a few additional feet of height and a hundred pounds of mostly muscle. My smooth face has been covered with a well trimmed beard. And my eyes, previously filled with joy and wonder, were now vacant.

And of course the items I brought were different as well. The tent behind me was much nicer than the overly patched, yet still prone to leaks, one we had used back then. My fishing pole was notably absent on this occasion, leaving my empty hands with nothing to due but fidget. And of course the biggest difference of all was my father.

I reached into the cooler next to me and pulled out a beer, popped the top, and took one quick sip. As a kid my dad occasionally let me take such a sip from his beer, partially to satisfy my curiosity of it, partially to laugh at the faces I would make at the taste. Either way I had never learned to like the stuff, and made the same face now. My single taste was more from ritual than curiosity of course. As a kid I would take the single sip, then pass the can to my father. Now I poured the beer onto the ground as libation, glancing sheepishly toward the urn as I did so.

The gravity of my trip began to take hold then, my vacant eyes began to fill with emotions, each warring for dominance. Those emotions slid down my throat and filled my lungs, demanding that I give voice to them. I searched for the words to say to express my rage at god, my sorrow for my loss, my self hatred for not spending more time with him. I wanted to give voice to it all but there were no words adequate to the task, instead the emotions conveyed themselves in a more primal way. A guttural roar that no human should be capable of in these "Civilized times" and should only be an echo from times when humanity hid in caves and hunted with clubs. With that roar I released everything within me, not just through my voice but through my actions. After my screams had faded away I realized my tent had been torn down, the cooler of beer and soda had been kicked several feet away, and my knuckles were bleeding, though I had no idea what I might have hit. Everything within my campsite had been destroyed except the urn, which stood untouched where I had placed it originally.

I slumped to the ground, shaking from both the physical exhaustion of my outburst, and the emotional exhaustion from finally allowing myself to grieve. I sat and thought, not of my father, but of myself. What if someone had seen that outburst? I was a civilized man, with an important job and status within the community. Civilized men did not give in to their emotions. They stood stoically, shedding no more than a hand full of tears, and even then only in the privacy of their own homes. They certainly did not roar like a beast and beat their chest in grief.

I sat there, staring across the vast distance of three feet to the urn, to my father. I couldn't deny the relief I felt. I sat like that, puzzling over the nature of emotions for what must have been hours.

I eventually got up and began putting my tent back together. One of the poles had been bent, causing the structure to droop on one side, but it was good enough to crawl inside and sleep in.

I dreamt of my father that night. In the dreams I remembered all the tough times we had gone through. I watched in my memories as he stood as the emotional corner stone of the family, providing support without ever taking any back, even when his own father had died. He was a shining example of what a man was supposed to be.

I also watched as his one or two beers a day became three or four, then more. Though he never lashed out, never let it be seen, it was obvious in retrospect that his grief had compounded and grown into a monster within him. But he was old school, a man's man. He needed to be strong so that's what he was. He wasn't going to let the occasional ulcer stop him.

When I finally awoke I did so with a sense of gratitude to this remote pond. I was thankful for the privacy it had afforded me.

I've often come back here since that day, when I had experienced loss, or when the stress of life built up so much that I simply needed to vent it. It's become my own special haven. Society will still judge a man for his emotions, but no one judges a man for taking an occasional fishing trip. And here at the pond, far away from society, I can find the release I need.