Mystic

This weekend, J and I took a trip to Mystic, Connecticut, to celebrate our six months anniversary. Amazingly, we are already half-way through our first year of marriage! Since both of us have been under a lot of pressure at work lately, the weekend get-away was timely, refreshing, and educational.

We visited the Pequot Museum, in which we were able to learn about the culture, life, and history of the Pequot tribe. Visiting this museum was an added bonus, since I had just been teaching my students about the Pequot war of 1636-37, yet I did not know that I would actually visit where battles took place when we decided to go to Mystic. In addition, my students had been writing argumentative essays on the issue of tribal gaming, and many of them have parents who often go to Foxwoods, a grand casino near the museum that is owned by the Pequot tribe. Learning about these connections have made history come alive for me. As I have learned more about history of various Native American tribes, I have become more saddened and angered at the mistreatment of these people. The silver lining, however, is that the Native Americans are still very much alive and active. The fact that the Pequot tribe has been able to create this remarkable museum is a testament to their resiliency.

J and I hiked a trail this morning that began at the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center. Within the woods, we noticed traces of stone walls that must have marked private homesteads at one point in time. Yet the homesteads have been long abandoned and the woods have once again reclaimed its land. As we hiked, I imagined myself to be a Pequot woman, manuevering a familiar trail that would have posed a danger for me in the 1630's. I listened to the leaves rustle and the trees sway in the wind, telling me stories that have been buried under layers of earth. A powerful gust of wind sent a flurry of fallen leaves across our path.

This image reminded me of a certain e.e. cumming's poem:

1(a

le
af
fa
ll

s)
one
l

iness

A friend from college introduced me to this poem and said, "This poem is me." I remember being sad to learn that she often felt like a single falling leaf and always in a state of loneliness. A leaf, just like a human life, must separate itself from its community and "die" alone. Yet in the image that I saw this morning, not just one leaf, but a multitude of leaves fell to their final resting place. It was as if the trees wanted to show me just how many human lives have fallen on this soil hundreds of years ago, dying all at once due to human stupidity, injustice, and greed.

I cannot help but grieve for the human condition.

Sometimes, it takes all my energy to hold onto hope, a hope in the kind of redemption that would make all wrongs right. All is not well, yet I cannot succumb to fatalism that would swallow me in anger, pity, or vengeance. Sometimes, though, I am tempted to be angry at the Creator -- why so much suffering? Why do you allow such rampant human stupidity?