Leave-takings

I was born with wanderlust. When I was a child, I would traipse off into the woods and hike up the ridges of Mt. Barnabe to see Elephant Mountain and Tomales Bay cleaving the land like a saber shining in the distance. Since then, I've traversed many landscapes the world over and for that I am grateful. 

One summer, when I was working in a small village deep in the Swiss Alps, I involuntarily threw my arms open wide as if to encompass the sublime majesty that left me breathless. Whenever I am overwhelmed by raw beauty, I open up my arms as if to embrace the landscape.

To anchor the self in place and time—if only just for a moment—that is my one true religion. I’ve done something similar with my own childhood landscapes, my ritual involves greeting the landscape as well as saying goodbye. Perhaps it is also a form of gratitude.

I once taught an old lover how to embrace the land. It was so exhilarating and liberating to acknowledge the intangible like that. As we hiked the long ridges that traversed the coastline, we opened our arms wide with impromptu hugs, kissing the vast landscape, saying I love you. I love you. A ritual that he continued to cherish long after we had broken up. 

When a Soviet friend had to return to the USSR when his visa expired, I was surprised to find there was also a Ukrainian custom of leave-takings—or saying goodbye to places you’ve been—which included bidding adeiu to my little cabin. 

It was somehow a fitting reminder to acknowledge the importance of departures. When you say goodbye to a house as if it were an old friend, you acknowledge its hospitality and shelter. It doesn’t need to be your house, it could be a place you've stayed, a place where the walls have protected you from the vagaries of the world.

And the house offered us refuge from our ourselves. Yes, I know, a house is an inanimate object, but it both shelters and cradles us in its arms like a mother. In that moment, it becomes not a house, but the idea of home. Something I learned while living in the USSR—and it seemed a fitting ritual. 

I can’t say there were many places in the Ukraine I wanted to embrace. The vast breadbasket was flat as a pancake all the way to the horizon and beyond—except for the desecrated kurgans, tumulus mounds punctuating an ancient landscape carpeted with sunflowers and wheat. 

At the steep ravine of the Bibi Yar, Stalin’s secret burial chasm, I wanted to weep even before I knew the backstory of the atrocities that had happened there, what was inhumanly possible. I said a goodbye racked with sobs for the eroding debris—bones of the unnamed dead hidden from the world in a mass grave.

Ditto that in Iona in the Hebrides as well—for entirely different reasons—the holiness of St. Columba's abby was graced with filtered light. I was letting go of something so profound, it was nearly nameless. It was as if I were shedding a lifetime of grief. The death of my grandmother, my mother. The absent father. 

Maybe it's a form of hiraeth or saudade. An overwhelming homesickness, more than nostalgia, it’s a longing for a place you cannot return to—the soul harboring equal parts of grief and love. As sobs racked my body, I was grateful that the holy community of Iona tactfully looked away, they understood the personal conversion of psyche.

The idea of leave-taking dates back to the 12th c., to receive permission from a liege lord to formally depart, as in fare thee well—I’m off to the holylands. As I made ready to leave, I was reminded of a saying I coined as a form of closure while on the steep slopes of Huayna Picchu, where I had left talismans: a lock of hair, and milky quartz from our hill in Northern California. For my grandmother, I said, as if bearing witness.

I instructed my friend, Always remember to say goodbye to the places you've been. Cherish them, say goodbye, for you will never pass this way again. 

And with that, I kissed the landscape goodbye.

5/18/23 Mill Valley Library non-fiction workshop with Sarah Broderick

FIRST DRAFT: There is an old Russian custom of leave-takings when you say goodbye to the house as if it were an old friend. It doesn’t need to be your house, only a place where you've stayed, where the walls that have cradled and protected us.

And the house offered us refuge from our ourselves. Call it gratitude. Yes, I know it is an inanimate object, but it both shelters us and hold us in its arms like a mother. It was something I learned while living in the USSR and it seemed a fitting ritual. 

And I’ve done something similar with my own childhood landscapes, only my ritual involves greeting the landscape as well say as saying goodbye. I taught an old lover to embrace the landscape and as we hiked the long ridges of the Sonoma County coastline. We would open our arms wide and embrace the air, kissing it and saying I love you. I love you. 

It was a ritual he continues to cherish long after we had broken up. Call if gratitude if you must, but to anchor one’s self in place and time if only just for a moment, that was my one true religion. 

I’ve been luckier than most, born with wanderlust so I've embraced many landscapes. I can’t say there are many landscapes in the Ukraine that I wanted to embrace so much of that land was flat all the way to the horizon. Except for the Bibi Yar. Stalin’s burial chasm. There, I wanted to weep even before I knew the backstory and what was possible.

My Soviet friend, Oleg came to stay with me in Forestville, I was surprised to see the ritual of goodbye included saying goodbye to my cabin but it was somehow fitting reminder of the importance of departures,

I was reminded of a saying I was fond of, something I had made up as a form of closure. Always remember to say goodbye to the places you've been, for you will never pass this way again.