Going back to the theology of place . . . I'm so blessed to have lived in Owen Sound. If you know anything about the OS, allow that to sink in for a second, because most people I went to school with there couldn't wait to leave it.When we first moved up there, I was 18, and we lived near a little gem of a place called Inglis Falls.
Here's the catch though - I don't think of any of the houses we've lived in in OS as home.
Nope. It's the woods surrounding the falls that feels the most like home to me. In thinking about places that have deep meaning to me, the trails in the 200 plus acres of woodland around the falls is so familiar to me, even after all these years ( I went for a hike there in 2008, so maybe it's changed a little . . . ). The way the wind talks through the trees, the markings left by deer, the way the air feels minutes before a storm.
It started to rain a little today, and I got homesick (keep in mind I consider these woods to be home). One of my favorite memories of home is walking through the woods as a storm was brewing, and if you've ever experienced a Southern Ontario thunderstorm, you know how you can just TASTE that creation is about to explode in some kind of primordial symphony. I love how very small and very ALIVE it made me feel to be walking through the trees ( walking? I'd CLIMB them - not intelligent, perhaps, but that was more a heart decision than a head one) and tasting the rain and FEELING the thunder deep within me and being dazzled by the lightning . . .
I hope there is a thunderstorm tonight. Calgary's air doesn't feel the same to me, so I can't tell as well, but I'd love to feel a good thunderstorm soon . . . to say nothing of the rain.
Rain just makes everything feel clean to me. And the fact that it rains most in the spring, a time of rebirth and renewal, is just perfect . . .
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