Boundaries, part 1

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Thenarius
Posts: 84
Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2011 6:38 pm
Location: E'er entwined in shimm'ring wings.

Boundaries, part 1

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When I was a child, my world had well-defined boundaries.

I had free rein of the grounds of the apartment complex where we lived. It was a considerably large area; it took me ten minutes to walk from our apartment building, nestled in the furthest-back cul-de-sac, all the way up to the front to catch my school bus in the morning, and that was going in a mostly-straight line. There were other turns off the main road running through the complex, leading to buildings I scarcely visited, except to play video games at a friend’s house if their parents allowed them to have guests over. There were two playgrounds on the grounds, accessible by sidewalk paths cutting between the buildings. One was near our apartment building, but I preferred the one further away from me, closer to the pool by the office building in the front. It had a larger slide, better monkey bars (not that I ever did much climbing, in my cowardice), and my friends lived closer to that one. Most importantly, the picnic bench near that playground lay under the shade of a wooden structure, which was life-saving in the Virginia summer. We spent many days at that picnic bench playing Pokémon, escaping the rays of the sun. That bench seems so large to my memory that it seems like two – but I suppose I was much smaller then.

There was another playground even nearer to me, right down the hill outside the back of my apartment building. I only had to race down the stairs and scamper down the path through the trees to reach it. It did not belong to the apartment complex, but to the nearby church and school. I spent much of my childhood in the narrow clearing in that stretch of the woods, separated from the church parking lot by a small creek. There was a small, wood-plank bridge over the creek, only about three feet long, but the creek got wider if you followed it a small distance up another hill. Once, on a dare, I went swimming in one of the widest parts. I don’t remember anymore how the water felt, but my mother was upset with me afterwards for ruining my Redskins sweater. I never swam in the creek again after that. I probably got too big, anyway.

I didn’t go into that part of the woods very often until I was older. Then, I was astounded by the beauty I could find following that creek. I went up there once in winter, when the little “waterfalls” formed by the creek running downhill had frozen over. I’m grateful that I did; now, that is a piece of beauty that belongs to me.

I had other parts of the woods that “belonged to me”, too. After age seven or so, when I had begun attending the church behind our apartment, I expanded my “realm” beyond the church parking lot, to the soccer field belonging to the school, and to the woods surrounding it. The most important area to me was a small hill, about ten or fifteen feet up, right above that soccer field. The “front” face of the hill was too sheer to climb up from the field, so I used a path that took me up the side of the hill instead. There were three boulders, large enough for me to sit or lie down on, right on the edge of the hill. Something about this area resonated with a very deep part of me, and I treated it as sacred. Perhaps it was the arrangement of the boulders, standing there in three, reminiscent of the Trinity; or maybe it was the path running back further into the woods, on which you passed under a tall wooden “gateway”, towards what was likely a campsite used by the church groups or teenagers living in the nearby housing development. I do not know what inspired this reverence in me, but the experience has marked me, evoking a deep and powerful awe from me, that points me towards a just-as-deep truth. Few things match that awe, though the cold dawn of Easter morning, celebrated at that church, has done so.

But the land that “belonged to me” was limited. Though I could go further into the woods in some areas, I generally felt like I was trespassing when I went that far out. My mother was, and probably still is, generally unaware of how far out I did go; if my memory can be trusted, once I walked two miles one way through the woods and popped out by my school, then rushed back home once I realized how far I had gone. Still, I knew that she did not want me wandering far. The highway just outside the front of the complex was one boundary on how far I could go, because it was too dangerous to walk around up there. The woods beyond the soccer field were another. If I went past those woods, I would end up in one of the backyards of a nearby housing development, and the homeowners would be furious with me. If I went through the deeper part of the woods instead, I would end up at the spring. I only went that far once, with some friends of mine who hopped from stone to stone until they reached a little island in the middle of it. I was never brave enough to do that. The spring was another boundary for me, as I never dared to cross it.
Wedjat Iaret, Ra no Omezu
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Thenarius
Posts: 84
Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2011 6:38 pm
Location: E'er entwined in shimm'ring wings.

Boundaries, part 2

Post by Thenarius »

What laid beyond these boundaries? As a child, I wasn’t very familiar with the layout of my city, so I couldn’t really piece the areas together in my head. I vividly remember looking out over the hills between my bus stop and the woods; these hills were too steep, and too overgrown for me to traverse. The hills, and the woods at their feet, were past my boundaries. Looking back, the memories of this area are hazy – but the area felt hazy even then. Back then, I would look out at these areas beyond my boundaries and feel as if I were looking out past the edge of the world. I had no knowledge of those areas, and the idea of transgressing these boundaries felt like a horrible violation of some sacred duty. “We do not go over there”, said some base part of my brain or soul. I could disobey my mother, but I forbade myself this.

Now, revisiting these memories, I am trying to find some way to describe or explain this feeling. These areas felt removed from time – the “end of the world” in senses both physical and temporal. Looking out at them felt like playing a video game, and looking out at the horizon to notice the vast drop in level of graphical detail, knowing that “over there” was an area you could not get to, that was not for you. I think that detail has a lot to do with it; an area which I’ve explored thoroughly, my mind stores in great detail, but I can’t do that for an area I’ve only seen from a distance. I do not think, however, that it is necessarily physical detail – I remember the impressions these areas made on me most strongly. The areas which I was allowed to explore, that became “mine”, I see myself as having a relationship with. I could never have a relationship with those areas that I could only observe from a distance. They take on an element of awe, because of this; too distant, too forbidden for me to explore, I can only imagine them, like faraway lands, or the Divine. Thus, I have encountered the Divine in both those areas near to me and those I could only observe and imagine, both intimate and personal, yet distant and transcendent.
Wedjat Iaret, Ra no Omezu
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