Some my best childhood memories involve fishing with my grandfather, the late William Grady Ashworth. Tackle box, rods and net in tow, he’d motor out into Lake Idlewild, and we’d sit quietly for hours until dusk reddened the Michigan sky. During those hours, Daddy Grady seemed less concerned with whether the fish were biting than the serenity of being out on the lake alone in his thoughts.

It was same with my late mother, Krisseda Elizabeth Pryor. An artistic woman, she picked up painting late in life and turned the sunroom of her Detroit residence into a kind of art studio. Many evenings, after her workday, you’d find Mom, brush in hand, contentedly painting delicate strokes onto the canvas. While she loved painting, and was quite gifted at it, I believe she most loved the sense of the escape that oil painting offered.

We all need an escape. Some of us find it by hopping on a flight and heading to off to faraway lands, while others simply walk a few blocks to the diner up the street and slide into that familiar tattered booth to sip coffee and read a good book. Wherever and however we find it, the desire to transcend our daily grind and tap into an aspect of our best self is both natural and timeless. Apparently, W.E.B. also shared my grandfather’s love of Idlewild. As DuBois gushed back in 1921: “For sheer physical beauty—for sheen of water and golden air, for nobleness of tree and flower of shrub, for shining river and song of bird and the low, moving whisper of sun, moon and star, it is the beautifulest stretch I have seen for twenty years.”

In exploring the world of travel, place, and Black culture, DETOUR is especially interested in those spaces that touch our souls, that heal or inspire or enlighten us. We call these special places sanctuaries, and we’re excited about launching Sanctuary, an occasional series starting today, which invites Black writers and other creatives to take us into their personal favorite getaways. I love this series because travel is a richly sensory activity yet most of us typically rely only on photographs to capture the magic of the moment. Sanctuary seeks to recapture more than the sights of the moment, but the tastes, sounds, feel that gives a place its transcendent feel.

At our family home in Missouri, we’ve got a couple of Adirondack chairs on the patio that look out over trees into the horizon. It’s a beautiful view because it’s ever-changing; depending on the hour, the sky is sometimes sky blue or metallic gray and even a luminous pink. Late afternoon breezes brush the skin with satin-like softness. One evening earlier this week, colorful July 4 fireworks lit up the sky. Occasionally, a hot air balloon floats by. I can sit for long periods in my Adirondack, beneath God’s kaleidoscope. I feel restored here, inspired, at peace. Some of my favorite ideas are born there. Sanctuary is the latest. I hope you enjoy!

Ron Stodghill

Publisher

This story was originally published July 08, 2022 9:00 AM.