Peace vs Pace

“Theres a place in a piney hollow 
that no one but me can find 
some choctaw built it in the hillside 
stone by stone in a simpler time
It’s a holy place my daddy showed me 
back before this land of mine 
on the blue side of the mountain 
where the sun don’t ever shine”

–     Lyric from The Steeldriver’s “Blue Side of The Mountain”

It was called “The Bathtub.”

A little, un-named stream ran through “the home place,” where Dad and my uncles grew up.  It was just across the road from the land on which I grew up  — the land he farmed for nearly 50 years.  As kids, my cousins and I met there almost daily in the summer.  It was halfway between our houses.  Tucked in the trees, the stream emptied in to a large pool (thus, “The Bathtub”) — never deep enough to swim in, but man did we have some fun there!  I can still hear the water running down that sandstone inlet — still see it seeping around the “dams” we’d build.  (Beavers in our neighborhood were never worried about their jobs, we’ll just leave it at that…)

We all have them.  Holy places.  Some where the sun shines, others in shady, or dark places that evoke different memories.

Finding holy places in our day-to-day lives is important, too.  Peaceful places that remind us of who we are.  Evoking the parts of us that run deepest — from and / or two simpler times — and maintaining ties to those places is worth the effort.  And maybe, just maybe, they’re places in time.  Maybe they’re a :10 block to just sit and reflect.  To breathe.  To be.

Pace is the rule of the day.  Like offsides in soccer, or the designated hitter in baseball, it’s a stupid rule.  And if pace is the rule, then peace has become the exception.  That’s too bad, because out of peaceful places come clarity of thought.

I’m goin’ back to a world of shadow 
gotta find some peace ‘for I lose my mind 
on the blue side of the mountain 
where the sun don’t ever shine