familiar places

“In the clefts of the rock
I delight to be.
In the covert of the precipice
You would find me.”

~ Song of Solomon, 2:14

Spring returns in much the same way as it happens when visiting with a former colleague after a long absence. There is as much to recognize and recount, as there is the air of the strange and somewhat out of touch. When chatting with an old friend for the first time in a year, care must be taken not to imply too much mutual understanding so as to sound rude. The oddly unfamiliar will re-familiarize, and the past impressions and inside jokes will return. We adapt and find ways to take the remarkable for granted. As winter becomes spring, temperatures in the forties, iceless sidewalks, and light clothing are suspiciously novel. In a short time today, I drove from sleet into coastal fog, rolling the windows down and savouring the swirl of spring air, I stopped along the road at a coffeehouse I like to frequent.

Journal-writing became something permanent and quite natural for me, just as I began my graduate studies. There were fits and starts through earlier schooling, stiffly answering compulsory assignments. Journaling reached a continuous trail for me, as writing developed into an unprovoked stream of thought processes. Accompanying writing and advanced studies, the effects of environment upon creativity were at once obvious to me. There are times for solitude, and there are times for the buzzing of a bustling café. Writing, as with athletics, is kept buoyant with momentum. Scraps of paper are at the ready, when a running start’s worth of thoughts come to me.

As for the cafés, when there is time, I have favorite places for writing and reading. For many years (until they were gentrified out), I referred to a café in the Old Port district of Portland as The Familiar Perch. Numerous journal entries include “F.P.” to indicate where I was writing. With changes in my home town, as well as travels- and similar currents in the various places of my frequency- there are multiple familiar perches of mine. I also have many favorite outdoor perches, too- especially spots that allow me to look up from my books to ocean views. Kettle Cove, in Cape Elizabeth, is one such familiar perch, beloved to me for at least thirty years. The large and angular crags provide for plenty of seating furniture. Where exactly to perch in places like this depends very much upon tidal movement. If the tide is ascending while I’m writing, I have to pay attention! Inevitably, being aperch in the wafts of words is to be nestled in safe clefts in the weatherbeaten ledges of this world. Indeed, a familiar perch can be anywhere, as long as it is a cherished and consoling place. For a cherished place to be familiar to you, a helpful ingredient is to build a positive history with the place- wherever and whatever it is, be it a destination point or a way-station. Among my familiar perches are favorite parks, hiking trails, libraries, restaurants, and even monasteries. I’ll occasionally visit my homework bench, near the University of Southern Maine; it still suits me just fine. A familiar perch can be a recollection point, somehow holding and rekindling memories for us.

A familiar perch as a consoling place serves as a cleft in the rock, a shelter; a place of pause. At the prospect of uncertain exodus, Moses pleaded with God to be certain of the Divine presence that would protect him and the people under his responsibility. As any person- even the strongest among us- he needed to be solidly convinced; he wanted assurance. God actually replied to Moses, and said, “When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by.” The sight would have been overwhelming and devastating for a human, like staring straight into the sun at close proximity. As it is understandably human to doubt, it is equally human to want to be convinced of imminent consolation. It would be good to know that desolations are short-lived, even by human standards. The cleft in the rock reminds us of concealing refuge.

Admittedly far humbler than the grandeur of the ancient Exodus, notebooks can be tiny clefts among shifting mountains and barricading boulders. Journals are my portable hiding places, little tents I can set up, write in, and re-fold as time and duty force me to continue moving. These written words are at once fixtures and fluid, yet safe and ready places for thoughts. While the ubiquitous electronically-lit screens are deterrents to musing, handwriting in small notebooks has an immediate physical sense of context. By this, I mean being clearly aware of place and time while writing, with an inherent patience to await the formulation of thoughts. Journal writing as a cleft in the rock is a cherished and consoling circumstance; it becomes its own consistently familiar perch. If writing is a “place,” then it is a communing encampment that moves with the individual writer. And like the biblical sheltering crevice, the written refuge is both the hiding-place and the conduit of discovery.

Above: Kettle Cove, Maine.
Below: Weston Priory, Vermont.

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"graphite today: this place of writing is a portable hideout. it has no address and it moves around. it can be folded and hidden, as needed."

noddfa

“He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High
shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord,
He is my refuge.”

~ Psalm 91

Following a week of exploring, visiting, and joining inherited history with the present in the Bangor region, I enjoyed some reflective time a short distance eastward. Penmaenmawr, a small coastal town, is also in the Snowdonia region of North Wales. Between the high terrain concealing many of the region’s old slate quarries and above the east-west sandy shores of Llanfairfechan, Penmaenmawr, and Dwygyfylchi is the Noddfa community. In permanent residence at Noddfa are the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary. The sisters extend a heartfelt ministry to the public, with their spacious Victorian house and its terraced grounds, for retreats. The word “noddfa” (pronounced nodth-va) is Welsh for “place of refuge,” or “haven.”

The composite experience of living for a week among the community of residents and retreatants, combined with peaceful environs and verdant landscape, provided the setting for a blessed sojourn. To be able to reflect within a larger journey proved to be a great way to consciously savor each day’s offering of moments. It was also an opportunity to simplify my paces before travelling south for the subsequent couple of weeks’ adventures. The repose provided spans for quiet gratitude at the center of an astonishing and dreamlike time.

Over the years, reflective respite time has become a vital ingredient in my life’s progress. Finding time to slow my steps, even from necessary employment, has become increasingly vital. And the striving efforts intertwine with the contemplative stops. Beneath representative résumés recording job responsibilities and service are parallel counterforms narrated in years of my written journals.

Penmaenmawr







Canopied sidewalks provide shelter for rainproof strolls.

For this journey through Wales to be as much exploration as contemplative sojourn, I had planned my stay at Noddfa long in advance. The idea was for the retreat to be somewhere in the middle of these travels. This helped me to leisurely appreciate and retain the many fresh impressions that accompany visiting new places. Viewing the whole of life as pilgrimage, times of unguarded repose allow me to ponder concerns other than the usual survival matters gratefully interrupted. Rather than escapism, retreats are momentary leaps from indefinite conveyors. Healthful contrasts have taught me much over the years about the kinds of solitude that promote creativity and perspective. Employment trials become seasons between the retreats, so that the intermissions seem less occasional as brief seasons punctuated between tribulations. A balance struck among contexts often smoothens the terrain, soothing and spicing the old quotidian. Curiously enough, the respite times often lead to a willingness to return to the fray, similar conversely to the cravings for peaceful solitude during stretches of constant work. Blending together the apparent opposites together is a thirst for holiness, for clarity of mind, and for meaning, is a comprising desire to serve well with my abilities and resources. And such thirst is what sends me out and away to places of tranquility and rejuvenating simplicity. There are landscapes to survey, both exterior and interior. Another motivating factor is my clear memory of previous retreats. Recollections become a cherished library. Aftertastes from a personal history of pilgrimage travels have layered into depths of recollections that in themselves inspire.

The Noddfa experience combines the essentials for a contemplative retreat. The generously proportioned house, which serves both monastic and retreat purposes, had been built in 1860 for Murray Gladstone- a cousin of Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone. After its life as a family retreat for the Gladstones in the 19th century, the house became a convent- later evolving into a combination of both convent and retreat house. The grounds are on a slope between ocean and mountainous terrain, and the Noddfa house is amidst gardens, trails, and woods. The Sisters’ welcoming warmth is sensed throughout Noddfa, and the mansion-like house has an assuringly cozy, unpretentiously practical, and relaxed ambiance. Fellow retreatants blend into the cordial hushed tones of the place, and two fortunate cats make themselves very much at home on the first floor. All present share meals together in the enormous dining room, and a portion of the house has been made into a chapel for community prayers and Mass.

The amiable and completely undemanding environment is ideal for me. My preferred retreats have always been the “unguided” variety. The Holy Spirit is what ultimately gives life, and this can be really sensed in a peaceful environment that is free of anxiousness. At Noddfa, I found the house and its immediate grounds equally as fascinating as the nearby villages and the mountainous seaside landscape. My neighbors were as encouraging as the beautifully inviting green paths. At numerous perches, both outdoors and indoors (during rain storms), I made many occasions to write- greatly appreciative of such unfettered space and time. My notes came to the subject of refuge- noddfa- of shelter. It may well be that shelter is sought to be away from distracting noise, worries about status, sustenance, past regrets, and future prospects. But it is equally a refuge into times and settings that allow for an enjoyment of sights, tastes, and interactions that are life-giving. And from the sheltering refuge is an entrance into, rather than an exit from, the horizons that call. Indeed, the paths of Noddfa merge with the Conwy Old Road, through Penmaenmawr, and to the wide skied open seas.

In Noddfa.