In the land once ruled by golfers

Our first few visits to the new wide-open Acacia Metropark that used to be the old members-only country club meant traipsing down clean fairways and whopping sticks on the manicured greens. Like kids getting away with unspecified somethings, we rolled around the abandoned greens and blasted sand out of what were no longer traps.

A hoot for sure, because no groundskeeper was going to tell us nothing. Inevitably, in the absence of sharp blades and strict intent, the greens slowly tufted, the fairways sprung lone outposts of dandelions and the rough went really ruff. The dogs were now bounding through eighteen inches of  a tall weedy, grassy, flowery mess.

We moved among red-topped stems of growth once abhorred as insipid intruders, stands of long stemmed bluebells, lacy-like gentle white somethings, dreaded dips of dandelions and serrated edge weed leaves so unwelcome in suburbia that poison was the answer. Wet bits of brown seed pods clung to jeans, concretizing the re-bloom, or maybe revert, of the land where golfers once ruled.

In the shadow show of my mingling mind, I pause to consider; this place is no longer pristine order and tightly tended landscape. It is not really anything yet. It will (someday) be a swatch of fields and woods that close inspection will remind visitors it was once a golf course.

For now it's in-between land, not exquisite uncertainty.

"Gone to seed" doesn't capture it, and the transition of the land feels doom-y and awkward--probably a reflection of my own current state. I'm hanging on a crossroads of creative energy, descending my own staircase of doubt, occasionally pausing to rally upward to the light.

My search for life's clear moments tangles the strands of ego and desire. Demands for clarity feel unheeded by an indifferent universe--but of course that's just indulging my fears of "never getting anywhere" and not going places I imagine I want to go.

Because on a former golf course that's turning into something else, amidst a funky mixture of chaos and tidiness, the truth is that I'm already there.



1 comment:

  1. Nice work, Luke. The dynamic of ruin and reclamation is beautiful and fascinating, whether we're talking abandoned homes or factories, or golf courses . . . have you been out to where the Richfield Colosseum used to be?

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