belonging

in an ancestral homeland

We had kayaked to the far end of the cove, she in my lap, nibbling on crackers and cucumbers, watching the water as I told her to, quietly, patiently looking for turtles.

The last time I was here, I had driven from Arizona and was working on writing a book. It turned into a ten-page, highly symbolic piece of prose, centering around a canoe, the rippling water and a young girl listening to the singing of an old bottomless well. (The book remains unpublished and water-logged in my files.)

Coming back to this land, presenting my daughter, the fifth generation of my mother’s bloodline, to this place of emerald green water, of fireflies and mayflies and wide-mouthed bass, to this place that is etched in the genetic memory of all my cells, whose water shaped my own water, whose smells and sounds bring me into my deepest sense of “home”, was an experience that touched me to depths I didn’t know existed.

The first time my daughter and I pushed out into that water, quietly gliding across the glassy green of so many of my childhood memories, I was overcome with a feeling of both grief and gratitude as I, for the first time, “grocked” the living thing that is tradition.

This feeling of, that which lives on, is not my daughter or my father who pushed me in his canoe so many times, or even myself, but this tradition, this sacred bond between parent and child of paddling, dripping, gliding across the green water. I disappeared into the living presence of a lineage; a new mother, introducing her daughter to these living waters, where she herself was held and guided and fed by her mother and her grandmother.

So as we paddled to this far end of the cove, keeping our eyes carefully peeled for turtles and all manner of life and bugs and fish, I was surprised to see that who greeted us at the entryway of this sacred nook, was a heron.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a heron here before. It’s wings were enormous and dark tipped. It landed in the tall branches of a tree above us and turned, beautifully silhouetted against the blue sky, to watch us enter this place, that I also don’t remember seeing in this level of beauty before.

We shored the kayak and put our feet out on those millions of softened lake stones and followed the inlet up, among enormous gnarled tree trunks and roots and moss, to a place where the stones formed an incredible flat terrace, giving way to a series of perfectly amazing little waterfalls. I felt like I was in the tropics.

“Love walking”, Amara said, for the first time ever. We held hands the whole way because the rocks were so slippery and I was also slightly terrified of encountering a snake or brushing up against some poison ivy.

The stream narrowed and the forest closed in and as we tucked under yet another spiderweb-laden tree, I decided it was time for us to turn around.

As we made our way back to the kayak, I turned around once more to savor my last moment with this beautiful place. As I stared into the still green forest, with my daughter in hand, I felt this deep stirring within me — this recognition of how my flesh really is of this place, how so many generations of my ancestors have lived and breathed in this land, whose chorus of crickets has shaped the waters and nervous systems of my grandfather and his grandmother, and how I, as mother, as protector of daughter, could see into the spirit of this forest with eyes that only emerge after many generations of familiarity with place. Time stopped and I was just, mother in forest.