seen and known

Until recently, I never liked being alone.

I thought being an extrovert was the jist of my story and that was the end of it, the answer to a binary multiple-choice question about who I was and how I would live my life. 

(Yet, I felt restored when I practiced yoga on a mat.  Read a book by myself.  Journaled under a tree.  Listened to music in the car while driving on a trip.) 

Part of the reason I would seek out company is because growing up an only child with single parents meant the house was pretty quiet.  My friends were absolutely energizing and life-giving community as I grew into adulthood.  I built a family that helped me find myself.  I dreamed of having a loud home full of kids eating, laughing, playing, being happy. 

(Yet, I knew I needed quiet time to plan and restore for the unbridled chaos of a happy family.)

When I had babies back to back, there was less time to myself.  Basically zero at home.  Work felt like a sanctuary because I could focus my thoughts and finish a sentence.  I started canceling networking lunches and other social activities and using the time to exercise, read a book, or just eat lunch alone.  I had started to crave alone time-- especially in the quiet. 

(Turns out there were some clues along the way.  I just never wanted for the space until babies.)

After becoming a mom of two, occasionally due to a scheduling hiccup I'd end up with 30 mins somewhere by myself... waiting for the kids, a friend, a client.  I'd find a spot outside and sit with my journal or a cup of coffee.  I once spent an hour at a bar with outdoor seating before a parent-teacher meeting.  A beer by myself would have freaked me out in the past.  But to my mid-thirties-mom self, it was glorious. 

(And now I can soak it up in small doses.)

This year, we moved to the middle of nowhere about 45 mins away from all my friends.  Away from access to even fake companionship that lives at Target, the mall, and immediate access to ordinary retail activity.  Nearby we have goats, roosters, and an occasional possum.  We have neighbors but everyone minds their own business for the most part.  We have 16 acres of solitude sprawling out to the river behind us.  

(It sounds glorious.)

I loved the image of this, but I wondered how I would feel. I wondered if I would get lonely.  Like antsy, itchy, I need more people around, insecure on-campus-over-winter-break kind of lonely. 

The answer?  No.  I love it.  And some days, when I have a day off or my car breaks down, I'm standing the field by myself under the big sky and I feel as connected as I ever have.  I go for walks in the woods to see what I can find.  I find tracks for deer, toothmarks from beavers, hidden wildflowers, and artifacts from past dwellers.  I feel connected to them in this space we share. 

(At our old house over 11 years, only once we went out the fence in the woods behind our house.  And it was after we had decided to move and thought we should do it once.)

Why am I reflecting on all of this today?

Last month, I went on an exploration walk in the woods by myself.  And I found the burial site for the enslaved laborers who lived and worked on this property more than a century ago.  

We knew it was back there, somewhere, unmarked and hard to identify.  The sellers told us it was "straight back from the house" and to look for depressions in the ground and fieldstone markers.  Everytime I saw a large stone in the woods, I thought maybe we had stumbled upon it, but it was never conclusive.  Until this walk. 

I ventured into an area where we hadn't spent much time, between two better-traveled paths.  I saw a stone sticking straight up, exactly like a headstone.  I thought, no way it's that obvious and I've missed it!  Could it be?  I tested the stone, and it didn't budge.  I looked to my left, and there was another, and another, and another, all in a row.  I knew.

I walked carefully through the woods inspecting every stone and the land around it.  Alone, I took care to study to each marker and the size of the depression that lay before it.  I noticed the orientation of the stones to the sun, to the river, relative to the house.  They are almost impossible to photograph recognizably but I tried to memorize where I was among the other trees that all look similar and disorienting.  

And I counted.  First 5 or 6, then another 10.  I knew from Internet research that it was canvassed by locals in the 80s and there could be as many as 17.  I found 16.  I can only imagine there would be more that are now unnoticeable so many years and storms later.  Some of the stones appear to be very, very old.  Worn and moss-covered in places.  Others are larger and perhaps newer.  

To my surprise, one bears a name. 

I felt honored to see it and to recognize it.  Wade Cannady.

Etched into the stone by hand, in all caps, to be known and remembered. 

Wade Cannady died around 1915, once enslaved by the Cannady family and then staying with them after the Civil War.  His name appears as a farm laborer on the family census for decades even after Dr. Cannady died, alongside one or two female names that weren't consistent.  But Wade's name is recorded with the family for another 30 years.  He may have lived on our property or across the river in another cabin quarters.  But I know now that he is buried here, alongside the many other laborers who likely built our house and worked this land for their entire lives.  

I imagine Wade might have had a choice where to be buried, with 40 years having passed after emancipation and a nearby community church founded by freed slaves.  I assume that the church or the family might have provided a spot for him.  Maybe not.  But maybe Wade chose to be buried here with them, many whom he probably never knew.  Did he know their names?  Time is one dimension and maybe their shared space and shared experience, lined up together, not alone but bound together. Or maybe Wade didn't choose, someone else chose, but someone chose this time to leave his name to be known and remembered. 

Everyone is afraid of being alone, of dying, of facing our past and our history.  We prefer not to think about it.  We go to crazy lengths to avoid these immutable truths.  But we are all connected, we are all mortal, and we are all human. 

It's possible that some people would find it unsettling, spooky, intimidating to have the responsiblity of this graveyard on their property.  It's probably all of those things.  It's troubling that it's undocumented and undisclosed, as compared to a recorded cemetary for the landowners next door.  But I'm so glad the sellers told us and that we didn't let it disappear.  I'm so glad that I could make time to go for a walk, by myself, in the woods, and be available to find it.  I'm so glad that we can find a way to honor it and remember it, even as unknown to use the individuals are.  

To me, having this reminder of history in our yard is important.  As white Americans in the South, all of our families and the institutions that have made us prosper are built on this same paradigm.  Built by these workers, buried somewhere, and that is our historical and systemic privilege.  We happen to know the spot for these few.  For Wade. 

I sat with him.  I told him that he is seen and I know his name.  I don't know much else, but I believe he is home and sharing this space with us and I honor that. 

We have the same responsibility as if we lived anywhere else, to know and understand and repair the distance from that experience to our own.  Finding these stones is an opportunity-- a different kind of privilege-- to repair that distance in our minds and hearts in the way we interact with this place. And I am grateful.