Cross Creek–A Gift from Marjorie and God

Saturday was my birthday so I decided I needed a day trip. In north Central Florida, where I live, there is no shortage of excursion possibilities. Everything is within an hour or a few so the choices are many.

The population and development here are out of control and I just wanted to get to someplace quiet and spend time in nature. Gainesville is only an hour and a half away and I decided to head that direction to visit someplace I’ve always wondered about. Back when I was going to the University of Florida I passed a sign for Cross Creek, just outside of Gainesville. The marshy, prairie around the sign intrigued me because it appeared to give way to an open body of water and I wondered what lay beyond it. I knew this place had to be teeming with natural treasures.

I had always heard that Cross Creek was the home of a famous author who led an interesting life at her secluded retreat. I knew she wrote The Yearling but that was all I knew and I never investigated further until Friday.

Driving up with my mother who was also anxious to see this place, I noticed that all building seemed to stop at our county line. A good bit of the drive is spent in the Ocala National Forest so naturally the scenery is the same as it was over twenty years ago when I was making the trip on a regular basis. That in itself was refreshing. The road to Cross Creek and Gainesville was also unchanged.

The peace and quiet we encountered was nothing less than a salve to my overloaded spirit. Now a state park, Cross Creek is tucked back in space and time. The home of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings is just as she left it. Her yellow 1940 Oldsmobile sits expectantly in the carport. One of the dresses in her closet is thrown casually over the rod as if she had left it there the night before. The large screened porch where she wrote invites one to “set a spell” and watch the birds flutter around in the trees near the small gate where neighboring Creekers must have taken their welcome so many times.

Two young cats were languidly grooming themselves on the chenille bedspread in the guest room where Robert Frost, Margaret Mitchell, Thornton Wilder, N.C. Wyeth, and Gregory Peck are all reported to have slumbered. Truly amazing it was to be standing that close to that kind of history.

Outside were the old barn, tenant house, and chicken coops that must have seen many years of happy toil. I wondered if the chickens and ducks found resting beneath the trees were actual descendants of the fowl of yore or if they were just lucky enough to be plucked (pun intended) from modern existence to serve as historic authenticators.

Surrounding the yard with its citrus and morning glories, is a hammock of ancient live oaks, adorned with the most dense curtains of silver Spanish moss I’ve ever seen. Like priceless ribbons of time, the moss hangs happily, graciously accepted by the branches, as if to say, “we belong to this place and to each other.”

Beyond these majestic monuments are two large lakes, connected by Cross Creek. These are where the creek pioneers harvested food for their families and for commerce. When one reads their story, it is a strong reminder of the importance of not taking nature for granted. These people depended upon the mercifully bestowed bounty of the earth to survive.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings wrote of Cross Creek, “It seems to me that the earth may be borrowed but not bought. It may be used but not owned. It gives itself in response to love and tending, offers its seasonal flowering and fruiting. But we are tenants and not possessors, lovers and not masters. Cross Creek belongs to the wind and the rain, to the sun and the seasons, to the secrecy of seed, and beyond all, to time.”

In her eloquence, she was so right. And this past Friday, the respect she gave to this borrowed sanctuary was shared with me as a gift for which I am humbly grateful. Wherever you live there are still places to serve as reminders that what is natural is sadly not always allowed to be eternal but that which is saved has the power to preserve our souls whenever called upon to do so.

Take care today.