My intention today was to start a three part series on Sonneberg Gardens in Canandaiguia, NY, but life has a way of mucking things up. I will start that for next week. This week as the summer starts to fade I have been thinking of my mother and my pop. From both of them I have gotten a love for the solitude of the woods and an appreciation for nature.
As a child I used to go walking in Black Rock State Park in Connecticut with my pop. I remember one year we went to pick fiddle heads in the woods. For those of you who don't know what they are you have been left out on something fun. Fiddle heads are what my Meme would call the ferns before they unfurl. If you pick them in this stage you can boil them and eat them. I remember going into the forest with my Pop picking these tightly curled edibles and throwing them in a black garbage bag. If my young memory serves me right there were lots of people in the woods that day doing the same. It was the best game of I spy a kid could have. The goal was to spot as many fiddle heads as possible. These moments in the woods with my Pop were often silent save information about what was found on the forest floor or about how early people walked the woods undetected.
I remember bringing a big bag of the curled ferns home to Meme and feeling proud as if I were responsible for feeding our family and friends. This feeling never left me...that sense of nurture and dedication to meet goals and I am thankful for that. Who would have thought a valuable life lesson would have been obtained picking ferns? I remember the smell of those fiddle heads boiling. It was noxious. I know now that the smell is similar to asparagus with a touch of boiled spinach. To a child that is kryptonite for sure....maybe even as an adult. I appreciated every moment of that day.
I have taken my daughter to Black Rock State Park on several occasions to go fishing with my mother. It was her favorite place to go besides the Farmington River. The first year I took my daughter there to fish we learned that she has an insane ability to cast in the same exact place repeatedly. I took my first cast and launched the pole into the lake. I had never seen my mother laugh so hard in all her life. I was truly grateful at that moment for that laugh as it always warmed my heart. It was a moment that was never lived down, something my daughter remembers as well. I have since gotten better at fishing (ahem).
In January, when my mother passed, she did not want a funeral. I never saw her body, didn't feel like I was allowed to, and so I feel as if I never got to really say goodbye. I had to go with the idea that she was just dead and that was that. I won't get that moment back, ever.
So, before I left Connecticut I asked my Pop to come with me to Black Rock State Park to say goodbye to her in a place that I know her spirit will linger. She loved that park, loved fishing there, and loved nature in general. The lake was iced over and my Pop and I stood with our arms around each other looking out across the lake to the dense trees on the other side as the sun started to set. We both loved her in our own way. We love this park with all its bounty and memories hidden on trails and in eddys.
If you get the chance to wander around this park you should do it. You won't regret its beauty.
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