Conor has been at Bartle Boy Scouts camp for a week, and today was Visitors Day. He showed us the Lakefront and a cliff overlook called The Point and his meditation spot in the woods.
That last part was probably the most unexpectedly meaningful. Grant was off doing Grant things and didn't want to go for another walk without a clear endpoint, so Kristy stayed with him and I walked into the woods with Conor. We set off down a path that quickly disappeared, and we ended up trudging through a bed of leaves scattered between trees for a good while. A group of campers started chanting and cheering off in the distance, and Conor said "Yeah, I usually don't hear that when I'm out here. It must be because they're entertaining guests."
We reached a semi-clearing where sunlight dappled through the leaves above us, and Conor hesitated, looking around.
"I think this is it. There's a dead trunk sticking up out of the ground... There. Over there."
He spotted a large smooth stone in the clearing situated between a vertical hollow tree stump and a toppled horizontal log, and he sat down on it slowly.
"So...I just sit here. And I listen to the quiet. And I write down my thoughts. And sometimes I just kind of think."
I didn't ask what the thoughts were. I don't have the right to do that. They're not mine. They belong to a 13-year-old boy growing up and learning to live without his family in the woods for 10 days.
The chanting from the group in camp had diminished by this time, and Conor and I got quiet and listened to the warm gusts blowing through the branches around us, rustling the leaves. And it was truly peaceful. I was sitting about 10 feet away from him on a different rock, thinking about what it must be like for him to do this thing that I never did at his age. I didn't think to take out my phone and take a picture. I might not have, because it would have been invasive or intrusive.
But part of me wishes I had. Not to post it in some random blog or Facebook post, but because I do want him to remember it one day. Maybe I'm overthinking that time and place, or I'm giving it too much weight. I have no idea if he'll remember it even a few months from now. But I will, and I wish a visual was preserved for him if one day he finds himself digging around in his memories, searching for that peaceful place.
In any case, we stayed there for about 10 or 15 minutes, talking every now and then, and then we agreed we should probably head back to his tent area.
We also went to Osceola Cheese Co. for ice cream and Peach Nehi floats and weird cheeses today, and that was fun, too.
All three of us have missed Conor a lot this week, so today was a special day. It was about the best Father’s Day and Summer Solstice I could have hoped for, honestly.
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