Benched Week 44: stories attached

“Yo!  I see the end!  That Stonewall thing – the statue!  We’re almost there!”

The call came from the advance scout of a troop of weary high schoolers, hiking toward my shady bench in the Manassas National Battlefield, where I had parked myself on a gloriously sunny day, filling time before tomorrow’s flight.  The statue in reference was a comically over-muscled tribute to the great Confederate general – call him Stonewall Jacked-Some – which stood outside the visitors’ center. 



The students were clearly not caught up in the history of the place.  I could understand.  Though I’m not a Civil War buff, I love historic sites because they set aside precious ground, putting up a defiant hand against the encroaching development.  But it’s hard to capture meaning in a place. 



As the students gathered for a photograph, looking to me like a herd of cows crowding together in the shade, I moved on to another bench. 



Here, the solitude of the spot was accented by the lone conifer and the foundation of a house that had survived both battles, but not the ensuing years.  I thought some more about the odd, prevailing peacefulness in a place hallowed by brutal violence.  For the picnicking onlookers that fateful day in 1861, their view of the battle was obscured by smoke.  Ours is veiled by time -- and by the tranquility of our present, distant day. The essence, the power of what happened here is gone, except, maybe, for the most imaginative among us.  Or most historically obsessive.



How do we transfer meaning in places or objects that we hold dear? This is frequently on my mind of late, as we purge the house of unnecessary stuff.  We all hold on to things that only have value because of the memories we attach to them.  Throwing them away is like letting go of pieces of the past.  How much better it would be to be able to pass them on – with the memory intact.

To that end, I have an idea to take the art that I still find good enough to save and write on the back of each a bit of its story – why it was created, what it meant to me, how I feel about it now.  Maybe I’ll let that be the second of the two criteria for saving something: 1) it needs to be competently made; and 2) it needs to tell a story worth sharing.



Of the two, the first is the more important.  There is a touch of the eternal in beauty.  These fields, speckled with buttercups and beardtongue, have not lost their power to soothe.  But to move us -- to awaken our awe, and pity, and gratitude – that takes a story.