Raccoon Creek, Forest Trail

           Some secrets are better kept.  Nothing can be gained by sharing them, and a lot can be lost.  So you tell me your dark secret in a selfish attempt to mollify your aching conscience.  I might have figured it out on my own someday.  And I might not have.

           And even if I did figure it out, I may or may not have chosen to confront you about it.  Maybe I would have valued our routine enough to keep my secret knowledge to myself.  It's called discipline.  It has to do with prioritizing the things that matter most to your overall well-being.

          But if you come right out and tell me--with tears and mea culpas--then all those possibilities are lost.   Once a truth has been given a name, you can never unknow it.  Words add an extra layer of reality to otherwise abstract facts; they confer real weight onto abstractions.  That's why some people don't like to talk about  their fears.  They know that words give things power.  There's something to be said for the old Germanic tendency to keep things under your hat.  Hiding emotions and keeping secrets are just two tactics in a comprehensive system of mental health.

          The evidence of long ago human habitation along Forest Trail, Raccoon Creek State Park, is part of its charm. Note the old foundation in the second photo.  It's the shallow cellar of some small house or outbuilding.  And sitting alongside the trail is this perfectly carved stone block.  Stone-cutting is a disappearing art, but here sits the masterpiece of some long-forgotten craftsman.  Too bad the stone can't serve some structural function somewhere.  I mean, it's already been stripped of its wild character and natural form.  It seems unfair to domesticate it, then leave it to sit in the woods.  Of course, I don't feel passionately enough about it to try to cart the damn thing out of there...