I think you must know a place like this, a meaningful location somewhere in the physical world that you encounter nearly every day. To others, it could seem unremarkable, but for you it is True North, a personal touchstone. It doesn’t have to be sacred in the way the Black Hills are to the Lakota, but quietly it serves as an emblem of continuity in a turbulent and changing world.
My spot is a small outcropping of ledge, part of a larger mass that underlies the grassy hilltop where my house and garden sit. Rocks poke through the soil nearly everywhere in Vermont, but this particular formation appears just a few hundred yards from my house on a driveway that winds downhill for nearly a mile. Every night after dark I walk my dog down this road, and when we reach this spot, we stop for a minute before heading home. My dog knows nothing about symbols, but surely she senses the importance of this moment as I stand, lost in my thoughts and making no measurable progress. She is never lost, and there is no mystery she cannot solve with her wet, black nose. She waits patiently while I stare at this small phenomenon of immutable beauty.
I know, I know, I said “unremarkable,” so I need to qualify that a little subtle beauty is required for a spot like this to work its magic. And time. From a car it’s just a flash in my peripheral vision, so I need to approach on foot as I did fifty years ago when my wife and I first walked the land we would eventually buy. The “touchstone” aspect started just eight years ago when we adopted a puppy, and the responsibility of her evening walk fell to me. Over those eight years there has been so much change — two Russian invasions of Ukraine, three American presidents, and so many people I have known, now dead — but the simple, stunning beauty of this spot remains the same. In winter the snow tries to hide it and never quite succeeds. In June columbine decorates it with a floral cap, and sometimes a fern will sprout whimsically from a crack. At night I see these details by the light of a headlamp, but with a full moon, particularly in winter, I prefer a naked eye. On a still October night with no moon, I will turn off my lamp and listen to falling leaves.
I should admit that I do a little caretaking around this touchstone, pulling up the invasive autumn olive before it sets deep roots and cutting back saplings every other year to block their downhill march. If they had their way, they would occupy the thin soil on the top of the ledge and send lacy roots down the face. My work is not proprietary; I’m not even certain this spot falls on my side of a border I share with a neighbor. A surveyor could settle who owns the ledge, but I like the ambiguity. A thousand years ago, long before the notion of ownership made its westward voyage from Europe, Abenaki forebears may well have paused at this spot, as I do today, and recognized it as grander than the tracking of game.
Do Change is a human concept. In eight years my dog Lucy has unselfconsciously progressed from puppyhood to middle-age, and I expect she will live the second half of her life with the same graceful equanimity. Some twenty years ago when in a single year our family lost two dogs to old age, grief made me vow to not take on another until I was sure it would outlive me. Luckily, my wife is no stoic, and a decade or so later when she saw a friend’s puppy, she wanted to take a look at the rest of the litter. My reluctance melted the minute we saw Lucy, just six weeks old. Of course, nothing is certain, but the odds say that despite her robust health today, she will die before I do.
Without the necessity of an evening walk, I wonder if I will visit my touchstone. Not in the same way, perhaps, but always I will welcome perspective on unanswerable questions and on my uneven moods. No matter what happens to me, this ledge will remain, oblivious to time and certain as a compass for me and whoever walks this road when I’m gone.