By Oggie Williams,
A few weeks ago—don’t weeks seem more like months in pandemic time?—Peggy and I went to Acadia for a few days. We were there when the park reopened for the first time after its covid-19 closure. Acadia was both amazing and weird. I felt like a character from a Twilight Zone episode, the wonder-struck guy wandering a once-crowded environment now depopulated by a nuclear bomb or some other catastrophe. The air was incredibly clear and clean, the roads nearly empty, the trails largely people-free. Places in the park where normally it’s, “be there by ten in the morning or there won’t be any parking spots left,” were empty but for two or three cars.
On our last day in Acadia we were hiking Pemetic Mountain and I realized I felt a deep sense of melancholy. I was in a beautiful place with Peggy, I have much to be thankful for, I wondered why I felt so sad. Well, I thought, I’ll just walk on and feel the sadness. I started taking photographs with my iPhone, trying to capture images that reflected my melancholy. The photograph above is one of them.
Eventually, I intuited what I think was the cause of my sadness: For weeks I had been behaving in a cautious, old man kind of way because of the pandemic. I viewed the world as a place of risk and danger, a place where my main priority was to remain safe. That’s not a life affirming approach and I think my spirit was protesting.
I am in no way suggesting I then decided to become a no-mask pandemic denier. But I did decide I’ve got to watch myself, consciously try to avoid becoming a fearful, brittle person. Somehow, I need to nourish the flexible and “green” qualities of a person who is still growing, still changing, still engaging with the wonders of life and existence. I don’t want to be so cautious about protecting my life that I end up killing the life that is in me. That would be a sorry state of affairs and sadness would be a reasonable response. That’s what I’m trying to do these days, being still careful but at the same time curious and absorbed by the miracle of living.
Oggie Williams graduated, with his wife Peggy, fromChIME in 2014. Until recently he worked as a per dieminterfaith chaplain at Maine Medical Center in Portland.
