Maymont v Lion's Bridge

               I am from Richmond, Virginia. I live maybe fifteen minutes from Maymont Park; which, where I live, is a very beautiful, magnificent, and sought after piece of land for weddings, parties, etc. While visiting the Lion's Bridge and its surrounding trail, I felt connected to this Maymont Park. Maymont has many things to look at and see and touch, and it even has a small section of animals as a make shift zoo/farm. It, also, has a Japanese Garden, Bamboo Forest, Reflection Pool, and many other things that reach to so many different types of people; ages, races, ones looking for spirit, others looking for a good hike or bike trail, etc. It connected me to a place of childhood where I was innocent and only noticed the beauty and none of the meaning or spirituality of it all. Lion's Bridge connects me with Maymont where it feels a place of home. Being a music major, we talk a lot about scales. Scales have seven different notes in them altogether. The first note is always called the Tonic. This is almost always referred to in the music world as "home." When you hear a dissonant or "uglier" sounding chord, you feel the pull and anticipation of it resolving back to home, or the Tonic. I make this analogy, because while walking along the trail I got many feelings of being pulled to the home, or center, of some of my most treasured memories at Maymont in Richmond, home. Lion's Bridge really took me over, emotionally, and let everything settle in- being a freshman and all- that I was not in Kansas anymore, so to speak! It gave me such a thrill to see the trees bending and swaying with the wind and become more connected with my new found home in Newport News, while still feeling that "pull to home."