The Search for Reprieve 6/23/2024

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

It is that time of year. Families are taking their unschooled children on trips to revel in all that is not the typical life.  So many are seizing the opportunity for a getaway.  Social media filled with photographic evidence of everyone’s good time on vacation made me start thinking about the places we go and why we go where we do.  I even had a long think about what type of place would be the ones that would be most meaningful for me, well me, and also my family. I will say that our interests, while they vary wildly, have a few areas in which they overlap when it would come to something or somewhere that we could agree on as a place of respite. The whys of our choices were what intrigued me most.

I’ll start with the simplest of preferences. We shall begin with my daughter. Her requirements for a successful vacation are very minimal.  She wouldn’t be opposed to a beautiful setting however, if I’m being completely honest, as long as there were games, preferably in the form of an arcade, she is a happy camper. I suppose this is appropriate for someone her age. I don’t suppose she truly has that much she needs to get away from. Other than the tedium of school her life is something of a vacation in and of itself. Now of course you would have a hard time convincing her of that but, there are a lot of things that one can only see in hindsight and how good you have it as a child is definitely one of those things. Childhood in most circumstances probably does not warrant a vacation other than just a fun change of pace from time to time.  And for my daughter, fun is the only requirement to meet the needs of a perfect vacation.

Leaving the carefree life, adulthood tends to have enough of a supply of stress and busyness that pretty much every participant in it wants to get away from their standard life from time to time.  For my husband, if he could have his ideal, there would be water.  It makes sense. He was in the Navy. He spent a large portion of his time there on a huge boat. Him on a boat is truly a thing to behold. You can almost watch it revive and invigorate him.  He isn’t even a classic, sitting on the beach near the water type of guy.  No, he needs to be on the water.  This is how he is freed from the everyday grind.  It is almost like the water he loves.  He becomes weightless.  The burdens of the job and caring for family lift on the waves.  Don’t get me wrong, he loves beautiful scenery as well but if there can be water in addition that is his idea of perfection. The water is what gives him the peaceful repose he needs.

Since we have been married, my husband has warmed to my definition of the ideal getaway. My perfect vacation would be mountains. If I am specific, the Appalachians.  He has now decided his perfect scenario would be some body of water in mountains, but I digress.  I wish I could describe the smell of mountain air. Every once in a while, here in the very non-mountainous areas I get a teeny whiff of it. I am not certain what it iss  that makes that smell but it is faintly of cinnamon and earth. That aroma is absolutely intoxicating to me. It fills me with a tranquility I don’t think the English language can adequately describe.  While the view of layers upon layers ridges in fading shades of blue is my idea of the perfect view, honestly, in thinking long and hard about it, a forest is almost on the same level to me. I prefer a deciduous one full of oaks, elms, birches and poplars. I love the sound of breezes in the leaves.  I have even seen the redwoods of the pacific northwest. The amazing presence of their sheer scale and magnificence is undeniable. Mountains and forests are my places of peace.  Just looking and being in those settings gives me a sense of calm.  I could legitimately just walk through a forest, not pines because I loathe them, but a good hardwood forest, and feel refreshed. 

I’ve heard people talk about some new age foolishness about communing with nature.  It seems a very simple matter to me though.  I personally think that it is taking in the most gorgeous points of creation and letting them tell the tale that creation has always told. To be on tropical beaches of white sand and turquoise waters, to be on mountain tops looking upon countless layers of fading hills, to be among tall trees and shaded canopies there is a stillness and calm. The business of work, the hectic wrangling of families, none of those can lend you a sense of rest.  There is something about those special places that seem to be a direct message of peace from Creator to creation.  How many of us have stood on a beach looking off to the horizon or looked down from a mountain peak and felt something? Something deeper than just observation of beauty but something that feels like a voice speaking to the depths of one’s soul. This is what we look for when we want a respite, and if we really take the time to pay attention, it is probably easier found than we realize. We don’t truly have to travel to seek it out. I think the voice of the Creator is always there, even in the most mundane of settings. I think if we listen, peace is there to be found, if we’ll just look, listen and know.