A Picture of Solitude

Do you have a sanctuary? A place where you find rest? Is it a physical place or a mental place? For me, no matter where I am I have such a place.

When I was growing up we lived just across the street from a really great old estate that was like our private playground. It had been deeded to the city as a public park. The house and gardens at the top of the hill were used as meeting space and for events; but the property leading up to the house was left pretty much undeveloped.

That part of the property includes the brick paved carriage path that begins just across the street from my old house and winds through the woods ending at the mansion and carriage house at the top of the hill. In the middle of the woods there is a small bridge over a ravine where the rainwater would runoff during heavy rains storms. This bridge is my sanctuary. When I was growing up I used to spend a lot of time there playing, reading, sometimes just sitting and thinking.

No matter where I am now, I can seek sanctuary by remembering back to that bridge. The picture in this post is a photograph of a painting of that exact bridge . It was painted by my childhood friend Mark. The painting looks exactly like the bridge of my memory. When I mentioned on his blog that that bridge was my mental sanctuary he offered to send me the painting. He posted the picture to his facebook page so that I could get a preview of what he was sending me.

I am so excited even to think about where I might hang this painting in my house. Now I will have a visual image of a place that I so love. Words can't express how happy this makes me.

Life is so good.

Pax