She gazes out the cottage window and past the rounded granite boulders at the still surface of the New Hampshire lake. Her peace is obvious in the quietness of her posture, the unforced raptness of her attention, her slow breathing. There is something special she comes to find in this place, this scene.
I, her wellwisher, am pleased to see her in this kind of bliss, but as someone who thinks that encounters between a one and an other are at the heart of all meaningful occasions, who or what, I wonder, is the other here, if any? This occasion is certainly meaningful, but an encounter in the way they are defined here?
Perhaps this particular place or type of place represents an outer plenitude, the way the city of Paris may be a diffuse other, a locus of otherness, to a bedazzled tourist. Or maybe a normally inaccessible part of herself, an inner other, is evoked by the bucolic circumstance, an expression of longing for an absent other.
Or it might be that there is no other, but only a personal need being satisfied, as when one craves mac and cheese as comfort food.
Still this lake is a special place, palpably different from where we normally live. Fewer people, less traffic. Something about the tall pines and the moonlight on the water and the loon’s cry creates a powerful impression that even I can feel, and I don’t have her memories stretching back to girlhood.
Some part of her experience is no doubt the evocation of fond memories. But her communion seems to be at an even deeper level, judging by the calm absorption in marked contrast to the agitation of preparations and getting here.
Of course, arrival is always a rest, if the destination is the point of the journey, and indeed, the cottage on the New Hampshire lake may be an icon of something she seeks.
Which is what? Something elusive, not always present anywhere but wont to make its presence known in natural places like these. Something that is open and unconfined by motives or agendas. Something that resonates inwardly. Something suggesting a peace, a power, a promise, almost a presence. And simply, by that token, something calming, soothing. Maybe immensity, mystery and mercy all at once; maybe freshness itself.
I’ll ask you later, but even then I won’t want to pry impertinently. So encounter? I’d say yes, the other not easy to characterize, nor quite as awesomely manifest as the Piper at the Gates of Dawn, but still, as she fed her eyes on the water, and tall trees beyond, and the vast sky beyond that, I could sense there was a drawing forth, a meeting, a melding. And clearly, to my joy, a deep joy.