Where I Began...

My daughter, exploring the woods as her mother did so many years ago...My parents sold my childhood home today.
As they've been packing up their lives into old liquor boxes and moving crates, I have been wandering, dream-like, from room to room and all around the five wooded acres. It’s similar to walking through spider webs. 
Memories catch me unawares, sticking in my mind, pulling me into the past. 
People I have not thought of, experiences, small inconsequential moments, and conversations long past are draped invisibly over every tree, every wall, every window--everywhere I turn.
My sensitive disposition has been overwhelmed. I feel like a clairvoyant in a graveyard. Too many voices fill my head at once, pulling me into the past and demanding my attention. It has made saying farewell difficult, painful almost. I sympathize with anyone who has sold their childhood home, or any home that had been part of the family for an extensive amount of time.
A home is a family member.
I am the daughter of a stonemason and a mother who has been known to dabble in the arts. These two individuals designed their home together. A modified saltbox was what I was told to say when describing the style of our house. In my young mind, I always envisioned the Morton’s Salt girl with the yellow umbrella featured on the side of our home.


The interior is an open floor plan, with a loft that feature private rooms. Privacy, however, was not dominant in an open floor plan, and so I frequently fled to the safety and comfort of the surrounding woodland forest.
It was here that I felt at peace. 
My father did as well, and I believe my younger brother was comforted in his youth, by all the trees, the brook, and the promise of building the perfect “fort.”


We had our favorite places. 
A hollow created by briars where a small person could climb in and feel safe, surrounded by thorns.
The Hole, a strange moat my father had dug around a maple tree. He lined the moat with stones, creating a wall inside the hole. Both my brother and I have ridden our bikes into The Hole, falling down three feet and landing precariously against the trunk of the maple. Many a nervous driver worried themselves into a cold sweat in fear of backing into the moat.


The brook was another haven. My brother and I were forever searching for fish in the trickle of water that ran over moss-covered rocks and through leaf clogged inlets. No fish were to ever found, but that didn’t stop us from wishing.


In the spring, frogs and salamanders brought awe and wonder to our lives. Many an afternoon was spent damming the flow of water to create deep pools that we tried, unsuccessfully, not to fall into. There were countless waterlogged penguin-walks to the house—our jeans soaked and heavy, our shoes squishing, and our extremities frozen. 
The Rocking Rock was a large rock on another even larger, flat boulder. We could wobble it with our small legs, creating waves and splashing one another.


As we grew older, and spent less time together exploring and playing in the woods, I found solace in the trees, the large boulders, the deer paths that I would follow until they faded away into nothing. I could gather myself, recharge, renew my soul. Being a sensitive, artistic kid (read, the weird kid who says strange things at strange times.)
I was often exhausted from trying to act “normal.”
The angst that follows the pressure of being social, popular, beautiful, interesting, humorous, cunning, and fun could be shed like a second, unwanted skin. After junior high, and then high school, I walked for hours. I sat and stared at the trees. I listened to the birds. I avoided hunters by hiding (can't believe I was never shot.) Sometimes I made a fire or brought my journal and wrote frustrated rantings about how much I hated my life, my small town, and my lack of an interesting existence.
How misguided I was.
I had no idea that the time I spent in the forest created who I am.
My father bought THE HOBBIT for me in fifth grade. I read it cover to cover. I also found Stephen King around that time. These two literary influences confirmed my surroundings for me. The shire was no different then our backyard. The farm in CUJO could have been down the street. The wooded town and swamp scene in CYCLE OF THE WEREWOLF could have been a stone’s throw from my doorstep.


As I went on my walks, more and more in the cover of darkness, I believed in the possibility of horrors in the woods, but I knew the truth of it.
There was nothing out there but squirrels.
The knowledge that I was alone, always alone, comforted me, helped me squash fears of the unknown, gave me strength to face anything, made me fearless and daring.
But it was fun to play, “what if?”
What if a werewolf did live in the forest and would prowl beneath my window at night?

What if that strange box with the D.E.M. logo on it, down by the river, the same one our brook ran into, housed a beast that they didn’t want found. But, then a young girl did find it. She peered inside and saw feral, yellow eyes glowing in the darkness…What if?

What if rabid dogs, vicious and violent, lurked in the woods, waiting to pounce on children, tearing them to pieces?
What if small fairies lived beneath the large mushrooms that grew near the immense trees? What if they caused mischief in the light of the full moon, while I slept nearby?

I wanted to believe these things, but I knew they were not real. They made my life rich, these beliefs, they made me who I am.
So, now, as that haven, filled with the beasts and fairies of my imagination is passing on to a new family, one that will provide new children for the forest, 
I need to let it go.
Those memories will remain with me. Some I share with my family, some I carry in my heart.
Yes, I am sad, but I am also forever grateful for that home, those woods, that brook, those dark places of nature where ferns grow wild, lady slippers bloom, and skunk cabbage lures unsuspecting children into releasing its foul scent.


 Thank you, 707 Sherman Farm Road… Thank you.