Moonlit golf course

Memorial Day weekend I'd had a full three days of fun. When I arrived home late Monday night I just wasn't ready to head into the house. Instead I parked the car in the driveway and started walking. There's a golf course close by and it's pretty easily accessible through a parking lot down the street. The parking lot is unlit so there's a transition from the tree-lined street where the lights give everything a yellowish hue, to the rear of the parking lot where there's nothing but inky blackness.

Before my eyes had time to adjust to the darkness it was time to cut through a short wooded section that's easy to spot in the daytime, but not so easily found at night. Well, I missed the path and I soon found myself getting hung up in the brush. I figured I must have walked too far through the lot and missed the intended turn so I veered to the left and made my way back a few yards.

I felt the path rise a little and then suddenly drop a few inches. I stumbled, but I recognized the familiar dip - now I was on the right course! Funny how I found the uncomfortable jolt to be reassuring. I still couldn't see, but now I had faith in where I was and in which direction to proceed.

Finding the edge of the golf green was surreal - I emerged into a black and white world illuminated by a full moon. As I walked along my eyes adjusted to the foreign looking scenery. The moonlight was so brilliant that I could make out individual blades of grass, yet the fairway and trees were devoid of color. The sky looked a pale shade of gray and all but the brightest stars were blotted out.

I started to think about metaphors for my journey: going from light to darkness, stumbling blindly through the forest, re-finding faith in myself, and eventually emerging into a world that was familiar and yet at the same time so foreign.

Then I began to wonder when the hell I was going to be able to stop viewing everything as a metaphor! This could get to be *really* annoying! ;) This must be what it's like to have someone narrate your life while you're living it. I haven't yet seen the Will Ferrell movie "Stranger Than Fiction", the world for me was upside down when it came out, but now I'll have to rent it…

So anyway - I followed my usual route, staying on the paved golf cart path which goes down a ravine and then up the other side - but as I reached the lowest point I thought "why do I always take the same route through here". I immediately turned right onto the grass fairway and cut perpendicular to the path. I walked all the way to the far edge which was lined with woods and then turned left to parallel the tree line up the other side. Hey - I've been through here so many times, but it really does look different walking up the grassy side instead of staying on the paved path!

Just over the top of the ridge I arrived at a spot that I'd first found over twenty years ago. There's a view of the river valley where the dark hills are spotted with lights. You can even make out the location of a local highway, defined by the headlights and taillights of cars navigating its route.

When I was a younger man with a newly minted drivers license I used to seek out starry views late at night. Sometimes driving out into the countryside, parking in the middle of nowhere, laying on the warm hood of the station wagon and checking out the stars. Sometimes driving to a sandy hill next to Longmeadow High School.

I distinctly recall working one late night at the local amusement park and arriving back in my hometown at 2:00am, only to be drawn to the view at the top of the dunes. Laying there in the sand at age eighteen, looking at stars and wondering what life had in store for me. I guess these are the habits of someone who is "running solo".

So there I found myself at the end of Memorial Day weekend, on the golf course ridge. Observing the footprints of human existence marked by the myriad lights throughout the valley. Hearing no sounds except for the leaves rustling in the trees. Checking out the stars. Thinking about things. Wondering once again what life has in store for me.