In the Presence Of...

At the market last Saturday, someone tapped me on the shoulder as I was taking care of two lovely customers. I reached back to grasp the fingers responsible, patting only air. The space behind the table is narrow, making it impossible for anyone to slip past me unnoticed. I finished up with the customers, returned credit cards to each smiling face and turned around. Just me and a wall of totes holding the day’s inventory. In the softest of realizations, I understood that I had been Visited.

Sometimes on the walking path parallel to the north woods, I’ll catch a whiff of cinnamon or pipe tobacco or freshly brewed coffee. The neighboring farmhouses are too far away to waft such delights across the acreage. I inhale it and register that in all probability, I am not alone. Another curiosity: at the south entrance to the meadow just below the ridge is a hole dug by unseen hands or paws but it sports no collar of dirt removed. In that place, the ground just sunk into a perfectly round depression, carefully exposing the thinnest taproot of a nearby sapling. It hasn’t gotten bigger in the year it’s been there. Leaves collect in it and sometimes water during a heavy rain. I step carefully around it each time I walk.

I’m not sure that noticing these occurrences is in the “skill” or “gift” categories. This isn’t something I plan to add to my resume anytime soon unless I can really spin it (“observant”, “aware of details”, “sensitive to the presence of others”). I have come to expect that when I walk the land, the chances of my meeting someone I recognize are thin on the ground but…I almost always encounter others. Some are wrapped in fur, some adorned in smooth feathers that look painted on, some noisily scuttling through the dry and tattered leaves with their tiny paws. And some are faceless, shapeless, but unmistakably present.

As I get older, the ranks of cherished family and friends on the Other Side is swelling, as is only natural. I’ve always wondered if and how often they might make a return trip just to see how things are going for the rest of us. Maybe Dad is checking out the state of our Osage orange trees, whose bumpy green fruit keeps roaches at bay (he was convinced of this and collected them off the ground whenever he’d come out for a visit. He also swore by deer whistles attached to the front bumper of pretty much every car he owned). Or maybe my sweet friend, Jeannie, who died eight years ago (has it really been that long?) is making sure the walking stick she gave me several birthdays ago is still up to the task. There was always talk when I worked in hospice care that surviving family members would experience “The Dream” shortly after the funeral, in which their loved one featured prominently and gently, offering reassurance that they were doing fine. There are two sides to that farewell moment—whispering to the dying that they can go, that we’ll be fine after they leave, and them returning the favor by showing up in our REM sleep to ease our grief-furrowed and anxious brows. A spiritual symmetry that is both karmic and kind.

I suppose it’s easier to understand these encounters when they happen in the vast expanse of land and trees and rushing creek water, all of whom we’re still getting to know as the seasons keep unfolding and collecting in our memories. Mystery lives alongside the evidence-based here and we’re left with endless options that include trying to figure it out and sitting silently at its feet. But who’s at the market behind the table, playing tricks on me while I’m selling granola? Who stopped by during one of my massage and acupuncture treatment sessions, calling out a troubled “Hello?…Hello?” as I sank deeper into the healing effects of the needles’ placement in my skin? Naive of me to think our tiny pocket of land-locked paradise is the only place souls can wander about freely. I’m sure they can go wherever they choose, no visas, no traveling tickets needed. And if it’s important to their agendas that they seek me out, I can’t imagine anything that would stop them. Not even a crowded indoor market stand.

For all kinds of reasons, I tend not to walk the land at night. Mostly it feels intrusive to those with whom we share this space. That is their time and I’d prefer we not meet in a startled or unexpected way that would understandably lean toward violence. I’m fine to sit on the porch in late August long after sunset as the Saw-whet owls call to each other from their perches in the sycamores that line the creek. It would be an honor to see them in those moments but it’s also enough to hear their song and be grateful for the miracle of hearing aid technology (It is important to note here that they have never been found sitting in our deck chairs or resting on the car’s side mirrors, suggesting a sort of mutual understanding born of instinct on both sides).

All this to say…there’s still so much I don’t know. Maybe my life’s teachers include the ones I can’t see but still sense when they come around at moments unbidden. I’ll take comfort in that. That, and in knowing that respectful curiosity will most likely be stronger in me than fear. For now, I’ll keep that door wide open.