Touching Base

(Inukshuk built on what was the old stone step at the entrance of my mother's childhood home in Nova Scotia)

As a child I loved playing baseball, softball, "scrub" or whatever variation of bat and ball game we kids could create. Those were the days when a freshly-mowed hay field, a ball, a bat, perhaps (if we were lucky) a catcher's mitt, and whoever was available - kids of varying heights and maybe an adult or two - would combine for an hour or two of fun on a lazy summer's evening. No matter how simple the game, the bases had to be represented by something, usually stones. You could play ball without a catcher's mitt, but you couldn't really play it without bases.

I am not much of a team sports kind of person, but if I had to choose one, it would be baseball. To my mind, there's something almost mystical about the game and how it unfolds. In particular, recently I have found myself referring to the term, "touching base", borrowed from baseball lingo. We touch base with people we haven't seen for a while. We may also feel the need, from time to time, to revisit places or spots that have held some significance to us in the past.

This summer, I allowed myself some time to touch base with both people who are significant to me and places that represent something special or that are in some way sacred to me. I did not consciously set out to do so, but now, some 7 weeks since departing in our Corolla to drive to the west coast and back, I realize that that was what I was doing much of the time.

Our family vacation to see Canada was many things to all of us, but for me, it was in part an opportunity to touch base with old friends and relatives I have not seen in many years. I think, sometimes, that our journey from cradle to grave is the process of letting go of the concrete in our lives and rendering what is abstract more real to us. As loved ones die, as physical places change and decay, we are constantly reminded of the fleeting nature of physical existence.

When I was a very small child, I slept in a crib right next to my mother. If I needed to, I could reach out my hand during the night and touch her, just to reassure myself that she was still there. That was all that I needed to fall back into a deep sleep.

This summer, I touched, and physically saw again, people and places that still exist, that have somehow played an imprinting role in my life. Places familiar to me since birth, people who have been in my life sometimes since birth. Some of these special spots have radically changed, but there remain enough elements to keep them familiar to me. I needed to revisit these people and places to find some rest from my restlessness of the past year or so since my mother passed away.

The memory and the photographs of these people and places from my recent travels will sustain me for some time, until once again, I will feel the need to touch base, to again be grounded in my past, so that I can feel solid today, and thereby ready to carve out the future years that yet remain to me in this life.

As I watch these reminders of my past give way to the changes and chances of this world, I find myself seeking out more eternal touchstones. And so the greatest comfort for me in my travels this summer, was to walk and sit in solitude by the ocean, to reconnect with my Creator, to simply be in His presence. Even the oceans are under threat; recent news makes me ever-conscious that the oceans themselves are subject to mutability. Yet when I sat close enough to feel the spray of the north Atlantic and watch its unending waves moving towards me, I was not thinking about the BP oil disaster. I was not even considering the particulars of my own life. As is so often the case when I give myself such time alone in a natural setting, I found myself experiencing the bliss of the present moment, utterly reassured of the interconnectedness of all that is, and the intimate connection I have with my Creator (even when I am oblivious, which is much of the time!).

I think, on this journey, I was reminded that my own heart is the closest touchstone. My hand can readily be placed over it and feel its beat. Therein resides the love of my Creator and my love for Him and for all that He has created. As long as I have physical existence I have access to this touchstone. Remembering this, wherever I am, I am home.