Beside the Still Waters

We went for a road trip.

I had been promising Jimmy’s boy a trip to the pumpkin patch since the end of August when my car broke down. After that came an exhausting series of trips to the junkyard, tedious repairs, shocked surprises and ruined weekends stretching out until the end of October, but today I was finally free. I drove a bag of groceries downtown to The Friendship Room and then I went to the chapel at the old hospital to thank God. Somebody had left the great big Bible in the chapel open to Psalm 23. I prayed it to Him twice. There is so much to be afraid of right now. I wanted a shepherd.

I picked up Adrienne and Jimmy’s boy who had just gotten home from school. And we made a break for it.

Out we went, across the wine-dark Ohio river, through Weirton where we went to church and almost lived nearly ten years ago when we tried to fit in with the Byzantine Catholics. I used to think Weirton was the ugliest part of West Virginia. But it doesn’t look ugly at all from the freeway, especially in Autumn and now that they tore down most of the steel mill. It just looks like shale hills and red and gold trees, with houses on them.

When you live in Steubenville, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is less than fifteen minutes from the Ohio border. We quickly crossed it, talking the whole way. Adrienne and I were chattering about her social studies class, her favorite subject. Jimmy’s boy wanted to know what a “Commonwealth” was, and he got a lecture on the original thirteen colonies and William Penn from both of us. I was trying to explain to him what a Quaker was, when we got off the freeway near PA 18. After that, I could barely speak for awhile.

This is my forty-second Autumn since I’ve been alive, my nineteenth Autumn living in Northern Appalachia, and I’m still not used to how beautiful it is. All around was red and gold, gold and red, bright citron yellow and deep burgundy purple, against a sky so blue it couldn’t possibly be real. Nothing can prepare you for Northern Appalachia in October.

There is so much to be afraid of, but I couldn’t be afraid while driving through western Pennsylvania, in October, with my child and my honorary nephew, on a bright afternoon.

Down PA 18 and around that sharp bend. Up through woods and farmland, with the bright sun filtering through bright trees, and then we were out at a ridiculous, harmless, fun family farm which sells Christmas trees you chop yourself. In Autumn, the Christmas tree farm holds a Fall Festival, and they sell you pumpkins that they scatter on the ground under pine trees as if pumpkins grew on pines. The hay ride from the parking lot to the pumpkin patch is free. It’s free to play in the sand pile and the hay barn. It’s free to admire the scarecrows they set up and wander about the grounds. We did a little of all of those. The pumpkins themselves cost fifty-five cents a pound: we were charged ten dollars, after Jimmy’s boy stopped teasing us by putting his foot on the scale.

Then we went to the lake, in the middle of Raccoon Creek State Park.

Adrienne immediately went and played on the swings by the beachside as if she was a small child. Jimmy’s boy was as thrilled with the beach as if I’d flown him to a resort in the tropics. He ran back and forth on the sand, finding deer tracks and dog tracks and the tracks of hikers in boots. He picked up a handful of sand and tossed it, just to see the ripples it left on the calm water. He and I dared each other to take off our shoes and wade in up to our ankles– the water was so cold, first it burned, and then it felt numb. We put our shoes back on, to walk out on the jetty where the small boats dock. I told him about the eagles that you can see around here from time to time.

The world was falling into ruin all around me. Terrible times were closing in. But just now, beside the still waters of the lake, it was so beautiful, I forgot to be afraid.

Surely I could be courageous. Surely I could be heroic. Surely God loved us after all. Surely Adrienne and Michael and Jimmy’s family and the Baker Street Irregulars and all the wonderful people I’ve come to know here will be heroic, and we will win. Surely goodness and kindness shall follow us all the days of our life, because we dwell in the house of the Lord in Northern Appalachia, in Autumn.

And all was well.

And all was well.

And all was well.