Station
Station
Portola Valley, CA
26 April 2001
In some ways it feels as if I have already left here. The cottage is no longer home. So much of the interior space has now been dismantled that this house, this interior space, feels more like a way station. A brief stop on a long journey. In a way the two and a half years here have been something of a station for me. A place to rest, to find some stillness.
In this moment I am thinking of some of the stations I have been in before. How many train stations have I found myself in? How many times did I squander opportunities to sit for a minute or an hour and pay attention to the stillness? I am calling to mind some of the amazing railroad stations in the east – great granite temples dedicated to waiting.
Yes, there is a quality of stillness to this word, station. Standing still. A bit vigilant at times – a sentry station. And a resting place, a way station – a place to be still along the way to going somewhere. The word itself comes from an old lost Latin noun, statis, which comes from stare, meaning “to stand”.
Also, I think of the Stations of the Cross in the Catholic Church. I remember how worshippers would stop at each station and recall the event pictured in the engraving on the church wall. Each station a resting place along a circuit. Always back to the beginning, but with resting points along the way.
There are, and have been stations to my life as well. Not necessarily resting places, but times of relative stillness, times with little change. A kind of flat spot on the side of the road. The notion that there is a “station of life” is a delusion. There is no one station in a person’s life. Rather, there are many stations along the way, and I suspect it takes great wisdom to notice them hidden as they so often are by the distractions of everyday living.
These stations can be anywhere. A moment to catch my breath and recall what is really important, what is essential in the moment. Waiting for the light to change at an intersection is a station. Standing in a checkout line can also be one, if I pay attention and stay aware of what is being offered. Such stations can be calls to stillness, and invitations to settle in and settle down for a moment. They are not calls to stop, or calls to go to sleep. The opposite is true. These stations can be times and places where I can put down some of the baggage I carry with me – literally the impediments – that keep me from seeing deeply the course and purpose of my life.
When I am able to put those bags down for a moment and take a breath, thoughts about identity, meaning and purpose are no longer vague philosophical categories. Rather, they become gauges, or signposts – not unlike those carvings on the church walls. At these stations I am able to see who is am now, why I am now, and what I stand for now. This is a good thing.
Just as I finished writing that sentence the sun burst through the clouds shining trapezoids of light across the desk and this page. It is as if I am writing from the shadows and into the light, and then back into the shadows, as the windowpanes break the sunlight into these patterns.
This moment is a small station as well – inviting me to reflect on the need for both sunlight and shadows in my life. A reminder that my life is a constant swirl between the two. At times the shadows become the resting area, a place to recover. Like standing in the cool embrace of an old tree’s shady base. I forget sometimes that shade is in essence a shadow.
Usually, I think of Shadow as a dark place, maybe even a dangerous place – and at times it can be. But I hold the idea of shade differently. It is lovingly protective and nurturing. It’s that wonderful feeling of standing near someone and creating some shade for them. For that moment I am sharing a purpose with something as still as a tree. In that moment I become a station. How cool is that.