Brigadoon-no-longer

          "My Brigadoon", I thought,
          as I pulled up the driveway -
          rising out of the mist
          for a few weeks of every summer,
          full of sparkling, smiling exuberance,
          just like that magical place
          about which Molly would sing
          if we were lucky enough to catch her
          on her way back to the Farm House, for requests:

                    Brigadoon, Brigadoon...there my heart forever lies...

          And so I´d float ecstatically 
          through six-weeks-of-every-year,

devastated when she´d disappear again,
before school started,
and life got back to "normal".

"If only the whole year could be camp-forever...", I´d grumble,
as I crunched through
dry autumn leaves
and gritty February snow,
longing for
     
          warm summer sun on my face
          and our shadows, arm-in-arm,
          stretching down Gypsy Trail,
          behind us.

And, yes, I´d catch glimpses of her
in song and in friendship and in the out-of-doors,
but would quickly go back
to counting the days
until, finally, finally,

          my feet were on the driveway again,
          pillow-in-hand,
          ready to race into her open arms,
          as she reappeared on my horizon.

And, of course, there were parts of "normal life"
that I dearly loved, and love still:
- family - friends - school - work - music - nature -
but, in my mind, they were
strangely and explicitly separate,
wonderful, but 
other.

          And, while within her loving embrace,
          I´d vow to "take it home with me in winter,
          spread it far and spread it wide",

and thought I would talk about her incessantly at home,
to anyone who´d listen:
...what we did...how much fun...miss it so...
and despite the fact that my
poor, dear, home-friends,
good sports that they were,
could sing the songs 
and knew all the names,
and my two home-and-camp-friends and I shared
knowing smiles
funny nicknames
and counted the days together,

she was still, for forty-six weeks out of every fifty-two,
          a chimera,
          a mirage,
          a beloved but hazy memory:
          rising gloriously,
          but fading quickly,
          like a fleeting bolt of summer lightning.

                    But what if...what if...

What if she didn´t have to disappear?
What if we could hold on to that wonderful place,
and who we are, there,

                    forever?

The longer I have known and loved her,
          the longer I have been aware of the privilege of having
                    grown up surrounded by her Spirit,

the more I learn about those whose vision
          gave her form and shape and reason,
                    and about those who took the first steps
                              along that newly-cut path,

in my feeble, feverish efforts
          to try to give her something,
                    anything,
                              in return for all I´ve received,

every time I am gifted
          with a few, fleeting days on those hills,
                     my heaven-away-from-heaven,

or can, amidst the chaos and beauty of
          my "normal life",
                    spend a few minutes connecting
                              with those with whom
                                        I walked those hills,

with each new-to-me Nyoda girl I meet,
          and in whom I invariably feel reflected back
                    that same Spirit,

the more I am sure
          as sure as I am
                    of anything at all,

that she has been with us, all along.

She does not, in fact, fade back into the mist,
like Brigadoon,
when I head down the driveway.

She is there each time I can love,
even the prickliest and most resistant,
with open arms.

She is present in that sudden realization
that we are all connected to one another,
and to all the green and fragrant places,
and to those that inhabit them,
but also, even, to the harsh, jarring cities,
in their noise and energy,
where pine trees,
dark against the night sky,
are few.

She is there because that is what she is:
connection,
awareness,
acceptance.

She is our community, which relishes
in her own, physical space,

but does not disappear

in its absence.