Here are some pics from my trip last weekend. Most of them are of familiar places; some are places I saw along the way that felt familiar.
Before I left town, I drove down the street where I did some of my growing up. The above abandoned school (hit by a tornado recently) is close by, along with abandoned mines. Below is where I played until sixth grade when we moved “to town,” this is where I ran wild with my brother, a neighbor kid, a dog, and our bikes. I forget how tangled and messy and rocky the forests there can be; my memories of these places blurs. I remember the smaller things, like lichen and moss, scooping sloppy salamander eggs from a creek into a jar, how rusted metal rods around the mines felt as we tried to pull them out of the chat. I remember the sound and crumbly-wet feeling of the base of small dead trees falling over. I remember getting separated from the others, wandering through the undergrowth happily, picking my way around, over, under thorny brambles. Stick-tights clinging to shoelaces, washing away seed ticks in puddles, finding snakes, turtles, frogs, lizards, mice, a million types of insect. Holding grand daddy long legs gingerly by the longest leg hair-thin leg, throwing rocks, scraped knees, sweaty foreheads, carrying large sticks, longing to find arrowheads, the smell of things leaves decaying under more leaves. Thorns stuck to thin white athletic socks, burying dead birds we found, jack-in-the-pulpits. Above all I remember the sound of the wind in the trees, the rush and shaking that grew and climaxed and faded with each passing breeze. Those were good days.
Question Friday! If you could only pick one, just one one one, what was your favorite spot to play when you were in second grade? It can be anywhere, but it can only be one. My favorite place is this forest; specifically the boulder that overlooked the stream. We built a shelter of logs and named it Wolf Rock.
Love,
black sheeped
