This Land is Your Land
Woody Guthrie
Classic song, classic American sentiment. I haven’t travelled much in the USA, but I know it’s there. I know it’s mine if – if I had the time and the money.
Chorus
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the redwood forests to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
As I went walking that ribbon of highway
I saw above me that endless skyway
I saw below me that golden valley
This land was made for you and me.
Chorus
I roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
All around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me.
Chorus
When the sun come shining then I was strolling
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
A voice was chanting as the fog was lifting
This land was made for you and me.
Chorus
Return to Country
In December 2013, I made a trip to New York to visit Bonny. I decided to take a few days to go back to Saugus and visit my cousin Lenny who lives in 57 Cleveland Avenue.
Here I am, in Lynn Woods for the first time in 40 years. Lenny brought me here, a pilgrimage to the childhood we shared. It is winter, and there is a layer of snow on the ground, but the air is still and dry, and I don’t feel the cold. I can smell the dead leaves that lie in small patches in the snow, autumn colors fading.
Lenny leads me up a steep path, and I know what is at the rocky top. Pirate’s Dungeon! It is closed now for winter, so we can’t enter, but my memory is sharp. If I could open the door, I would immediately descend the steep, narrow staircase carved into the rock. Even in darkness, I could explore the chamber at the foot of the stairs. This time, will I find the pirate's lost treasure?
We walk on, through the trees and along the snowy path.
Lynn Woods
Uncle Ray, a suburban woodsman and lover of the New England woods, often led a troop of kids to explore the trees and trails and waters of Lynn Woods. It was a wonderful playground. As Lenny and I move through this ever mysterious, totally familiar landscape, I feel regrounded, re‑earthed. Something in me that I did not know was broken, starts to mend, and I am calmed.
That night, Lenny and I hold each other, and I feel the reconnection with him. I feel also all the joys and the hurts that have come upon us during the decades of our forced estrangement. Our childhood love for each other envelops us and, for a short time, we both feel comforted and safe.
I understand, deep, deep within me, what indigenous people mean when they talk about the need to return to country from time to time.
It’s time to return to Bonny’s. Lenny drives me to the bus depot in Boston. Lenny hasn’t been to Boston in years, but for me, he goes. I get the coach back to New York City.
That night, in bed, alone in the apartment, I cry. I cry for all the years I have missed with Lenny. I cry for all the years I have been without Dion, I cry for the lost years of not having my children with me, tears I have been too afraid to shed, afraid they would never stop.
But they do stop and I fall asleep, exhausted. When I wake in the morning, I am somehow at peace with myself, and I know I will be able to acknowledge my need to cry from time to time. I understand that it is necessary, and it will stop.
Although it will take years, the healing has started. The healing doesn’t mean forgetting, but it does mean forgiving and accepting, learning to live beside the hurt and grief.
