I think they were maroon-colored, upright soldiers standing at attention in a uniform line on one of the lower shelves of the bookcase my father had built for our living room. Looking back, they were a bit of democracy, readily available for all if the inclination was there. Everyone in my community had a set of encyclopedias back then. Their quality varied by class, from the richly bound Britannica to the buy-by-the-piece set I grew up with. Perhaps they were so cherished in my family because they arrived slowly, week by week, from our local chain grocery store. If, at the end of a weekly shopping visit, the bill was at least $29.99, the next Funk and Wagnall volume could be obtained for 29 cents. And so, our collection grew. Unlike school, I loved the freedom they offered, where knowledge was prescribed and forced. I could leaf through the pages and stop wherever I wanted or find the background to things that piqued my interest. I was mesmerized by the glossy page that lined up all the world’s national flags in vivid color. And in those volumes were facts about the human body that were not readily available in the whispered world of the 1950s. Funk and Wagnalls germinated the seeds of my curiosity, which still plagues me today.

My chronic state of questioning has taken an acute turn during the pandemic years. I haven’t taken any far-reaching trips; I have been confined to a radius of several hundred miles, regulated by the COVID-19 restrictions. The maroon Funk and Wagnalls is long gone, replaced by other sources of information that provide energized fuel to the curious longing so deeply etched in my aging soul. I now have a worldwide range of Google and YouTube that provide lovely lectures and information bites on any subject. I can hear about an author and a book, and immediately have it in my hands through my Kindle. I can even purchase ancient, out-of-print books from eBay at discounted prices.

Even from my home in rural America, I can speed through the world of knowledge and gather fascinating insights. But I’m soon troubled to find out how little I know, distressed to learn my education was so limited. I read Gore Vidal’s 1876 and discovered that another election was marked by a political frenzy of doubt. I watched “The Gilded Age” on one of my streaming services, and I’m appalled by the opulence of those who were selfishly in power in our country before antitrust laws were enacted in the early 1900s. And I can read an old unabridged copy of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, not for its socialist proclamations but to understand the lives of my immigrant ancestors who were taken advantage of during the late 1800s and early 1900s by big business. And if that isn’t enough, reality comes across all my screens, causing me, like all Americans, to cry with pain and ask why things like the war in Ukraine, the Tops Super Markets deaths, and The Ross Elementary School shootings are happening.

In April 2022, I had to get away, to travel, to see new territories in real life, not on a screen or on printed pages. I needed to connect with people who lived in troubled times like mine and persevered. I decided to take a few days and visit some places I hadn’t seen in a while. I decided to head for the Finger Lakes in New York State.

I stopped in Auburn and found the statue of Harriet Tubman, the woman who led countless slaves to freedom before The Civil War. I decided to walk to the site of her house and was disappointed to see how far it was beyond the houses once owned by the town’s Antebellum white population. I noted that a wooded area further segregated her residence from the city. The historical site was where she opened a rest home for elderly African Americans.

I went to Seneca Falls to connect with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the suffragettes who worked tirelessly to gain women the right to vote. They initiated a prolonged struggle in 1848 that culminated in 1920, when the 19th Amendment was finally ratified.

Planning my route home revealed something quite obvious: Seneca Falls is on Seneca Lake. I researched the St. Lawrence State Hospital and read an excellent book, “The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic,” by Darby Penney and Peter Stastny. It gave me a valuable look into the lives of the patients at The Willard State Hospital and insights into the how they were treated. Since I was nearby, I decided to visit the ruins of this asylum to gain a deeper understanding of the story. I go to places like this with respect and compassion. I always want to see things for myself, hoping to discover context and gain a deeper understanding.

The hospital has long been abandoned, having been shut down in 1995.

But finding a sign, the story continued.

Even in death, people were sorted, labeled, and segregated.

Almost 6000 patients remain at their final resting place in this cemetery, their existence signified with cruel indifference by a number on a disc practically hidden from sight.

Sometimes I view my curiosity, my relentless quest to uncover the reasons behind things, as a curse. During the pandemic, I’ve explored my own area and, breaking through my own oblivious familiarity, I found many stories and cause-and-effect tales. There is so much dark history, locked away in secrecy, forgotten by a society that finds history old-fashioned and is too busy to care about the patterns from days gone by that reach into our lives today and have the potential to strangle us.

What I see in the past and in today’s world upsets me and makes me angry. I care, as we all do. We all wish things could be different. I have become an activist, focusing on a single issue, and I utilize my writing skills to persuade others. But I am just an elderly woman from rural America. It is hard to get people to listen. Should I give up? Should we all give up and accept these things that we might be unable to change?

I always have the luxury of going home to the trees and the rock ledges of my woods, to be alone in the peace of the natural world. A place to hide from the chaos of the world. I find comfort there. I read the poems of a new Facebook and Instagram friend, Valari Brainerd. Her words are beautiful, and I have ordered a copy of one of her writings to frame and keep near, constantly reminding me.

As human beings, we are all forced to live in a world of our own making, filled with inconsistencies and frightening pressure. However, we are also offered numerous lovely natural places and moments for renewal.

I am who I am. I know I will never stop roaming, questioning, and caring. But I also know that from time to time, I need to take the time to shut out all the noise and find peace in quiet places. I can do both. I can be both. I need to, and it’s okay.

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