Life Around Leggett Pond

Walls of wood, glass and stone attempt to separate me from life at Leggett pond. Inside, I have the privilege and honor of working. Things in which I am both involved and not involved have great importance on the lives of others.

Inside the walls of our company are lives. Important lives. Complex lives. Each with its own history, dreams, problems, and delights. The lives touch each other and other lives outside our office both locally and internationally. A portion of each person's day, an important portion of their best waking hours, is spent together. My life touches some of these lives.

But outside the walls of wood, glass and stone is a simpler yet very beautiful world called Leggett pond. In this simple world so very close at hand are trees, water, sunlight, geese, deer, turtles, fish and other forms of life. This elegant and beautiful world coexists with the world of people coexisting so close to it.

Generally speaking, each of these two worlds are satisfied to coexist so very close to one another but so far from each other. One world is very conscious of its happiness, hurts and pains; the other world is more basic and perhaps not as self conscious, at least as self conscious regarding its own importance. By and large these two worlds exists side by side as though each world was in a separate dimension.

I am a creature of the world of wood, stone and glass. Although much of the time my blinds are partially closed, I feel a call to emerge from the world of wood, glass and stone to visit the quieter almost more beautiful world outside.

My prayer to the Creator of Man and Nature, is to have the eyes of God. To move from the complexity of life to the simplicity of Christ. Like many, as I become older, I am becoming simpler. My prayers have mercifully been heard.

Slowly, the educated attorney is becoming sifted like flour. My complexity is becoming simpler. The bright and beautiful times of my childhood often spent out doors call me again. And so as I sit in my office doing my office duties I feel the call of the outdoors much as I did as a child as I dutifully did my homework and postponed the outdoor beauties and the smell of fresh air. But the call is stonger now. It suggests that it will not always be there or more rightfully seen, I will not always be here to heed the call.

As I sit and work, I hear the call of the outdoors. The geese call and invite me out to play.

My camera is my passport into this always new and strange world. Without it I would have no excuse to follow this sirene song of the geese. No right to invade this world free of the negative influence of people. I come as a guest to this world. In my heart I have been issued an invitation. It is not for everybody but only for those souls who are called at this particular time and place.

If there is a right to enter this more basic universe it is come by tears and suffering. That is the price of admission. But it is not even an earned right, for many of us have shared in tears and suffering. The invitation is not issued to me alone-but to others who hear beautiful music, see beautiful sunsets, can take long walks or just sit in the park. Others can have close friendships. Perhaps there is the call to sit on the swing set again or sit with a family member on the front porch at twilight.

To me the acceptance of that invitation, comes about by taking rides on the Harley and running down to visit my friends, silly geese all, at Leggett pond. The acceptance of the invitation involves being present at sunsets and sunrises.

Thus I am a stranger in two worlds. One world is with my friends and family in houses and dwellings of wood, stone and glass. The other is when I visit as a stranger in the world of nature.

HarleyDad talking about life at Leggett pond.