The Purple Patch - Missouri Valley College

My Own Province
by Timothy Johnson
“The thoughtful man’s greatest comfort
is to have explored what can be known
and to worship the unfathomable quietly”
−Goethe
It can be difficult to describe what moves people,
the feelings that burrow deep under the flesh and deny
proper examination. This inefficiency limits my own understanding
of what moves me: Nature. Sometimes I feel
a rush of sentience and ponder how long I’ve been living.
It’s like all of my synapses are filled with electricity. A
feeling definitely worth striving for. But there is no way to
describe such singular experiences. Search for it patiently,
and when you find it dissolve into it.
When I was a child my grandmother brought me
to Missouri. Her house was located on a hill of a dead end
street. The virtue of the spot was the woods that skirted
the right and hind side of the house. It wasn’t long before
she took me in. I remember the feeling of captivation the
woods possessed, which was probably heightened by the
storybooks. I didn’t heed the lessons. I had thought: would
I ever use breadcrumbs to aid retreat? Whenever I needed
to escape from the discord and turmoil of my family, I had
the woods. So much was to be discovered, so many adventures
to undertake. I truly loved that area. Assuredly, the
woods carried a profound influence from then on. If I were
to believe the Latter Day Saints, I had unknowingly wandered
the grounds of Zion.
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