filled

A couple weeks ago, I was talking to my friend Christy the story teller. He talked about his family and childhood and environment. He said that once when he was talking about these things with someone, they made a comment that they could understand why he was always so peaceful and content. They had noticed his deep connection to everything around him, his people, and even the places. I told Christy that I understood what was meant by this. When I come home, the load is always lighter, the weight of the world lifts temporarily. But there have been several occasions, all here in WV, that really stand out it in my mind as tension-relieving, peace-drinking moments. Years ago when my cousin Cheryl was married, she had her wedding reception on their farm, in a field with burgers and dogs and a mountain music band. I remember sitting in that field, listening to banjo and fiddle play ancient mountain songs that reeked of saudade, but having none of my own. Feeling all my longings fulfilled. There was such an intense emptying of stress there in the crisp, clean air, with the mountains and family around, that the sensation lingers still, like the scent honeysuckle, or pretty-girl perfume, or a sweet melody. It's indescribable - peace. We tend to think of it, or describe it as the absence of stress, worries, or problems. But it is more than that. It is something all to itself. It is its own thing like stress is its own thing. It's not the opposite of stress, that would be boredom. Peace is not boredom. One doesn't have peace from removing unpeaceful things. In fact, because it is something that fills you, instead of something you get from being emptied of other things, you can have it even in the midst of worries and problems.
Back in the fall, I experienced this again for a little while as I sat on the porch of brother's unfinished new house with my mom and dad. We talked a little, and sat quietly. Looked and listened. I thought about how peaceful it was here on this porch. Then I realized it had little to do with the porch. It was the company. Later that day, I sat on my Grandmother's patio with her. Just the two of us. We remembered together. I remembered 40 years, she remembered 80. I was connected to more than I even knew. A lot of my connection had to do with these people and this place. There is comfort and familiarity in having a place among of line of people in a place that is the setting of their stories, of their lives.
Peace today as I sat on Scott's porch quietly with Allison. With her, I broaden the connection, broaden the source of peace. Even my kids feel connected to this place and these people because they are connected through me.
So the realization? The secret to vacation is not to attempt an escape, or to be rid of the day to day. The point is to be filled. It's a catharsis. The idea is to be filled so that everything else is forced out. Much in the way that the Comforter fills you so that all else flushed. The way that the lack of bad stuff doesn't make you good, but being filled with good stuff does.
I'm rambling. I'll stop.