Saturday, October 28, 2006

Invisible

As a child I craved invisibility and pursued it at every opportunity, heading off into the trees and rocks whenever I could. There was a special place on a wooded hill not far from my parents' house where a great white pine and an old oak grew in a deep embrace, and that magical spot was everything that my traumatic home life was not - it was peaceful, enfolding and blissfully quiet, and I was invisible there - I was held in the loving arms of the trees and the greenwood.

When I learned to read at the age of three years or so, books became another refuge, and I often curled up in a deep window well behind the draperies with a book, reading with desperately focused intention and doing my best to be invisible, whatever was going on in the world beyond the curtains. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it did not.

In my middling years, there was no time to entertain thoughts of invisibility, and I put the idea away for another time, cleaving happily instead to travel, marriage, motherhood and a career of sorts. Perhaps I had less need for invisibility in those middling years, as I created homes of my own and evolved into other roles.

Now, as a middle aged (or perhaps elderly) female, I have discovered to my delight that I am oftentimes invisible in the great wide world (as are most older people, particularly women), and it is amusing to learn that the state which evaded me at almost every turn in my youth has been gifted to me in the fullness of time. Having said that, the best form of invisibility of all in my book (pardon the pun) is that splendid rainbow cloak of invisibility, transparency and "oneness" which manifests when one is out among the trees (or under a full moon) and behind a camera.

Books (of course) are still a great love, and as long as I have hands with which to hold them and eyes with which to read, they will remain a great pleasure and a passion. Within a good book, one may also become invisible.

6 comments:

Endment said...

Your cloak of invisibility is working - but your words leave a trail which I can follow past the great white pine and old oak to the magical spot...

Rowan said...

Books and the countryside have always been my refuge too, though happily my childhood wasn't traumatic. Trees are very comforting companions aren't they? They always calm me if I am stressed or unhappy for any reason. Blogger seems better today so maybe some photos soon....

Maya's Granny said...

Like you, I needed to be invisible and somewhere else a lot as a child. I took books into the branches of trees and hid amoung their fully leafed branches and also under the dining room table where the table cloth my grandmother had crocheted served as a curtain. I was never found in either place and many the book that was read in them.

Anonymous said...

I've always spent most of my time in forests and think of them as my "safe place" to be.

Endment said...

The photo was worth the waiting!

K Allrich said...

You and I share so much. I was the girl behind the claw-footed sofa that reeked of stale cigarettes. I took refuge in crayons and picture books. When I was older we moved to the country and I spent hours hiding in field grasses and tucked beneath trees at the edge of the nearby woods. Waiting. Listening. Wordless. Invisible.