When I think of a place that centers me, a place that brings me calm, solace, contentment, safety, happiness… My mind revisits Cambridge, England. Specifically, there’s an old willow tree by the shore of the Cam, near Trinity, where I’d sit & watch punts drift by. The willow fronds bending down into the river water would undulate in the gentle breeze, & I’d enjoy the sights & sounds of an English summer afternoon. Idyllic.

Lately, visualization provides a powerful tool for returning to a state of calm & happiness. Taking the time to allow my soul those moments during the day has been a new thing.

For most Americans, summer in childhood or young adulthood meant months of free time, time to be outside playing & enjoying nature. I’d bring a book with me, finding places to read in the soulful quiet of field or woods or lake. Unstructured time emerged as the most prized treasure of those years in my memory, just being able to enjoy the present moment without worry about goals, grades, deliverables, deadlines, responsibilities. Pretty much the whole of adulthood. And therein lies the paradox…

How can someone like me, so Type A, driven, goal-oriented, anxious about productivity & proving myself at the same time desire periods of absolute respite, inactivity, cocooning in solitude?

There’s more to explore, when it comes to why England, why summer, why in this kind of spot exactly. What I do know is that period films set in England soothe me. Things that remind me of my summers in England give me joy. Perhaps I loved Christopher Robin, Mary Poppins, Beatrix Potter’s menagerie, Peter Pan, & countless other children’s stories set in England too much?

Castles existed there, & dragons were purported to be real with the Order of St. George. Arthur & Merlin made magic & fantasy something possibly real.

Shakespeare’s idylls of mid-summer night’s dreams & pastoral settings filled my imagination, I suppose. Of course, Kenneth Grahame’s & A. A. Milne’s depictions of English countrysides were brilliantly captured by E. H. Shepard, so those images linger too. All stirred by reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett or the The Chronicles of Narnia. Whatever the cause or reason, England is etched onto my memory as a soul’s comfort, a place of absolute solace for me.

And as life continues, I’m finding I have to protect my special places, and I even if in my memory. Remain wary of sharing these gems with others. Just venture there on my own, in my mind or in my spirit, protected & safeguarded from harm or ruin, forever enduring as perfectly as I dreamed.