Boston Mine, Mayflower Gulch – Colorado, U.S.A. A passed note, an invitation to a tête-à-tête, between classes, amid firehouse red lockers. A surge of backpacks, books folded tightly under arms and against chests, carry me there, racing against the tardy bell. He’s waiting as he said he would, head down, fiddling with a notepad. My eyes anticipating, trusting, searching, find his. “We need to break up,” he blurts. My eyes dim, heart sinks. Head nodding in silly acknowledgment, disbelief, but not total surprise. “And, oh,” he adds chucking a jacket into the bottom of his locker, “I don’t look back.”
The hubris, yes. But, never mind that. I’m 15 and crestfallen. And I’ve a trigonometry exam.
So curious, the words and feelings that imprint on us. This, my first breakup, more than 20 years ago, and for whatever reason I most remember his peculiar ability to not look back. Or so he claimed.
To be sure, I’ve read a lot into those words, but that’s what words are for.
How does one not look back? Is there virtue in never staring back into history, a lesson to be found in that pillar of salt? Or is it only a certain kind of looking back, a reverse gaze that foments regret, bitterness, consternation? That stunts growth.
As it turns out, he did look back.
Like I do with some regularity–out of habit and practice. Chewing cud, ruminating on former lives and past decisions, looking for patterns and truths that hold against time and age. It’s how I make sense of experiences. It’s why, I think, I enjoy being around old things–photos, books, people, trees, buildings. Anything that illuminates the present with the faint glow of history. A testament to both the continuity and impermanence of life. Any indicator of the connection between then and now.
I choose to look back…that is the only direction we can learn from. -Wallace Stegner
I’ve developed an affinity for ghost towns and ruins since relocating to Colorado a year ago. Leadville, Dearfield, Mayflower Gulch and Boston Mine live in my imagination. I want to know the people who lived and worked there, what they smelled and heard. I want to know how they experienced the land and environment, at times harsh and extreme, but always beautiful. Did they gawk at the mountains like I do? Would they be amused by my eagerness to snowshoe on the most frigid of days, for fun? And how would they feel to see their precious log cabins returning to the earth, sinking and decaying, exposing their stories to the elements? I want to know where they landed when it all went bust and what, if anything, they learned about it all.
I wonder if they ever looked back.
I love these sentiments. You are an excellent writer with insight, wisdom, and a very unique perspective. Even cows know the value of ruminating!