Of all the people in my life, it might be a rock that knows me best. This rock that I know sits twenty feet high with a footprint around sixty square feet. It holds the shape of a mound with cracked lines cutting across its face and small crevices carving out gaps and holes - some of which make great seats for the people like me who come to visit. The rock sits in a sparse forest of gentle trees, half of whom will lose their leaves over the coming month. To the north of this rock there is a small local road, to the south a bike trail. Each of these paths wind their way through the trees and marsh where, half a mile to the east, they will meet up at the ocean.
The first time I met this rock I was five years old. I can still feel in my body the excitement that came as I rode onto the bike trail from the welcome center parking lot. I could feel the thick and hot summer air begin to make way for something different. The cover of the trees around and above me brought shade and a cool breeze that was invigorating. Pumping my pedals as fast as I could I zipped around the first bend, up a small incline, and zoomed straight ahead. My father trailed behind, giving me space to explore, to feel like I was out on my own.
After the second turn there was what felt to my five year old self like a sharp downhill that exhilarated and also scared me a little. And then, in a matter of moments, all of that energy, all of that excitement, disappeared and was replaced with the tedious agony of trying to pedal up an incline that I simply did not have the strength to match. About halfway up what felt like a giant hill I could no longer get the pedals to move so I got off and walked my bike the rest of the way.
I remember the physical sensation of not being able to make it all the way up this hill but I don’t quite remember the emotional experience that went with it. I think I was still at a point in my life where my inability to do something was met more by determination than by defeat. I am sure I didn’t like not being able to make it all the way up the hill. I remember being upset that I had to get off my bike, but I didn’t let that upset deter me. I got right back on my bike determined to make it up the next hill. And I did.
Just after that next hill, there was an offshoot that my father wanted to explore. After a mile on the trail we were all ready for a little rest, and that is how I came to first meet this rock. It was, in my estimation, the biggest rock I had ever seen, and it was perfect for climbing. I immediately put my bike down and ran up to the rock. I was excited and a little bit intimidated.
I remember walking around the base of the rock, touching it, feeling it, noticing the shapes carved into its face, noticing the different ways I could imagine climbing to the top. I spent many years of my childhood returning to this rock, exploring those new paths, learning its features, testing my own abilities. As I grew I would notice the changes in the immediate surroundings of the rock. A tree that grew so close to the rock that they were almost touching died one winter, changing much of what I remember about the way the rock looked, the way it felt to be in the rock’s space. The feeling of the space changed again when I returned to the rock in my late adolescence and as a young adult. The rock felt smaller than I remembered it. But each time I would walk around its base as though reintroducing myself to an old friend, or a relative I hadn’t seen in a long time. And then I would drop in, I would find that familiar sense of steadiness the rock offered me in all those times we met.
This rock has known me through forty years of life, has seen me through some of my most beautiful moments and has been a place I have come to in the hard moments - in moments of grief and loss, in moments of uncertainty. This rock has been a place that I can return to when I need to return to myself. Many times I have dragged myself here when I don’t know what else to do. I come up to the rock, walk a circle around it, make my way up to the top, and sit there… sometimes in meditation, sometimes I write, sometimes I just cry. And always, after a little while, I begin again to breathe. I allow myself to sink in, to actually feel this friend beneath me, let my breath match the slow and steady energy of this ancient being. Eventually, my mind will stop racing and I will remember myself. I will remember that at my core I am a child who loves to bike through the woods, who loves to push himself towards the next challenge, who smiles when there’s something he can’t do and gets ready to try again, who finds joy in the simplicity of spending time in a beautiful place with people he loves, while challenging himself to do a little better next time.