In loving memory of Carrie Lee (1956-2020) ~ Malinda Words

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is the 210th article in the new series that began in December 2022. Links to previous articles are given below]

The state of Missouri in the United States of America is home to more than 4,400 springs. Maramec Spring is the fifth largest and it is estimated that it spouts an average of 100 million gallons of water daily. If you were to walk upstream from the closest point to the entrance of Maramec Spring Park you would come to a pool. Still. There are no streams pouring into this pool. There’s the pool and there’s water gushing out of it. Quite unbelievable.

The native people knew about it, obviously, long before the white settlers arrived. It is said that in 1825 a band of Shawnee Indians traveling East to meet the political leadership in Washington had camped on grounds owned by one Thomas James who was a banker and merchant. They had told Thomas of ‘a great valley with tall trees, swift flowing waters and the rich, coloured earth used to paint the markings on their faces.’

They had taken Thomas’ business partner Samuel Massey to see this wonderful place on their return journey. And that’s what led to the construction of the Maramec Iron Works the following year. Thomas’ granddaughter Lucy Wortham James made her residuary estate a part of a trust and authorized the creation of the James Foundation more than a century later.

It is beautiful to walk or drive along the pathways in that 1,860 acres of forests and fields of which 200 acres have been marked for public use. You can walk and you can sit. A place where you can sit and watch the water, the play of sunlight on trees duly dipped in the water and the shoals of fish swishing this way and that.

Carrie Less must have loved this place. She must have walked. She must have sat and watched the leaves and rocks, sunlight and water and the inevitable slowing down of time. I had never met her or heard her name spoken and yet nothing intrigued me more about Maramec Spring Park than her presence which was marked by a note about a departure, a lasting absence.

It was a note on a park bench. Very basic. A name and some dates indicating period of residency.

IN LOVING MEMORY
CARRIE LEE (1956-2020)

Who she was, what she did, who she loved, what sorrows and joys she held in her palms and to what degree of equanimity she let her gaze rest on them, I do not know. It is said, however, that Carrie ‘ enjoyed the outdoors, working on artwork, collecting rocks and seashells, spending time with animals and most importantly spending time with family and friends.’

So I picture a woman in her early sixties walking along those paths, stopping to gather patterns on the water, examining the color-shape-texture signatures of rocks, picnicking with family, affirming the truths that fascinated her. I imagine her as a girl clinging to a parent’s hand, a young woman with friends and with a lover, as a mother and a grandmother, a friend, an acquaintance and a stranger, making memories and leaving a trace of everything remembered, lifting stones and laying them underneath, one by one, gently, year after year after year until she found release from a corporeal cage and flew all over her most favourite landscapes.

Carrie Lee didn’t materialise. She didn't announce, ‘Here I am, Carrie Lee, known to these waters and knower of these paths.’ I realised however that ‘Carrie Lee’ is a name that has been given to everyone who visited this place, dressed in its formal ‘park’ suit and undressed, naked and beautiful long, long before names and registers were required.

Carrie Lee sits on a park bench. There! She has taken the form of sunlight gathering its skirts and disappearing into the trees. She’s back now, without form or signature. A beam of light moves across the legend carved on the plaque so I can read it again. That’s Carrie Lee saying ‘yes, I am here. ’

Go well, be well, Carrie Lee.

01 September 2023

In loving memory of Carrie Lee (1956-2020)

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