30 Day Picture Prompt Challenge

Interlude.

Let me skip back in time some fifty years. I was a child growing up in northern NJ. I lived on an animal reserve called Ramapo Park. Our driveway was two and a half miles long in either direction, up or down the mountain. The bus used to pick me up in the morning at the top on Skyline Drive. In the afternoon, it dropped me off at the bottom at Pool Hollow. I did walk to 'school' in raging blizzards, up hill, BOTH ways!

Growing up on the mountain was magical. We lived at the edge of a lake in a long, rambling house with four garages, a barn for the horses (and my playhouse), a spring I walked to every morning for water, and my maple tree at the edge of the lake where the bridge rose up to get folks across the cove.

We had to be pretty self-sufficient up there as the nearest neighbors were at the end of the driveway. Trees across the road, lost power, storms; we simply dealt with them. I had to be self-sufficient too, as I had no neighborhood kids to play with and TV was a rare treat. We, my brother and I, had chores, of course. The stables, the stalls, shoveling in the winter, raking in the fall, gardening and endless weeding in the spring and summer. After chores, we had the lake to swim and boat in, fifty thousand acres to wander and explore, the dogs and cats to play with, a library full of books to read and, we had our imaginations.

One of my favorite places to go to was perhaps a half mile from the house. If you follow the dirt road past the cutoff to the old iron mines, go around the bend and look for the wild mountain laurel bushes on the left, you can see a faint deer path on the right. If you follow its meandering path, eventually you end up down at the lake.

Just before you got to the lake was a ramble of low, arching bushes. Over time, I'd cleared out four 'rooms' under the canopy of green. This was my fort. Over the years, I would bring occasional 'sleep-over' friends from school here, camp out at night alone, hide and read and, growing older, go there to write in my journal all the things young teens have ever written in their diaries. One of the best parts of my fort was out its 'back door' where I had my 'back porch.'

My porch was a long, flat slab of granite that gently sloped down to the lake. It was shaded by an immense oak tree. On either side of the rock grew laurel bushes, tall frothy ferns, daisies and other wild flowers. The shoreline here wasn't spread wide to the sides, it was more of a small inlet, my own tiny cove. Here, I could imagine I was almost anywhere or anyone at all. I could be Peter Pan in Neverland or a magical faery in Ireland. I was King Arthur at the edge of the lake waiting for Excalibur to rise or an explorer sighting the Pacific for the first time. I could be a Canada goose migrating or a wild wolf guarding her pups. Most of all, I think, looking back, this was where I figured out that the me who I was was an okay 'me' to be.

I'd let my toes cool in the water (summers, except when I was on a horse, I never wore shoes) letting the minnows nibble. Sometimes, I'd bring my homemade fishing pole, small hook, bobber and a piece of bread and I'd fish for sunnies. My dad and brother loved to eat them, but I didn't and so I always let the ones I'd catch go.

Other times, I'd slip out of my clothes and swim in the shallow water off the edge of the great rock. I discovered that there was something infinitely more freeing swimming in skin rather than a bathing suit. I'd dry in the sun and get dressed again, so no one would know I'd snuck in a swim! There were benefits to being the only family on the lake!

Most importantly, here, on my 'back porch', I'd lean against that old oak tree and write. It is where, along with a couple of million mosquito bites, I was bit by the writing bug. One day, writing of some supposed adventure, I realized that what crawled, jumped, sang, and climbed around in my imagination could, indeed, become real. All I needed to do was write it out and they became every bit as real as the Skin Horse in 'The Velveteen Rabbit.'

Eventually, I discovered poetry again, having lost it to summer camps, my own horse (finally!) and a plethora of other things that occupied my days. For a time, I switched from stories to poetry. That was what I now call my 'Walden Summer.' I'd recently read several books by Thoreau and was enchanted. I wrote odes to fallen logs, homilies to the bass hiding in the shadows of the oak branches and ballads of my adventures both real and imagined. I filled notebook after notebook with my scribblings. I drew pictures of every flower, bug and bird I saw. A dogeared paperback dictionary became ever present in my old army-green backpack. That summer brought another revelation: The quiet kid finally figured out she had so much to say!

The summer we moved away, I buried one of my journals at the base of that oak tree. I wrapped it in layers of plastic, put it inside a small tin box and buried my own little time capsule.

About fifteen years ago I hiked back down to my home on Ramapo Lake. It is a state park now, filled with hikers, dogs on leashes, children, litter and noise. I don't think I've ever appreciate the quiet of 'mountain noise' so much as that day when the people and barking dogs drowned out what I'd come back to hear. Our house was long gone after having been burned down while in use as a ranger station. Still, I walked up to the spring and drank handful after handful of water that still tasted better than any ever since. My maple tree was oh so much taller and I climbed up to what once was my favorite spot in the tree and ran my finger over my initials carved there.

Finally, I walked along the road to go find my fort. It was, as I'd hoped, still at the end of a barely there trail. I didn't want other people, outsiders, in my spot. I was in my mid forties and I did not want to share!
My fort, long grown over but big enough now that that long ago child could have had twenty rooms. I fought through the brambles and weeds to the rock and sat, one more time, on my back porch. The slab of granite seemed much smaller, the tree much larger. Socks and hiking boots quickly removed, my tired, swollen feet plopped happily into the water. I took my journal from my pack and wrote of the day. I thought of taking some pictures, but there were people out on the lake and they kept getting in the way. There weren't supposed to be people!

After a bit, I got up and began rooting around at the base of the tree, I was so sure I knew exactly where I'd buried my journal. Finally, I realized that as the tree grew, so had the massive roots at the bottom and that there was no way to retrieve my treasure. Giving up and soaking feet once again, I wished for the solitude that would allow a swim. Yet even still, for a brief space and time, the years fell away like leaves spiraling in a breeze. Once again, Peter cavorted, my inner magical faery darted about and I pet a unicorn.

Pondering adulthood, changes, lifetimes since I'd been here, I decided I rather liked my journal being forever hidden. A part of me was still there on my mountain, would be forever and that no amount of hikers and wanderers could take away what I'd once had here. Still had, deep inside. More, they'd never experience my mountain. It made me smile. Selfish, I suppose. Hugging my youth, I put on the socks and boots, my older feet no longer used to walking on rocks and dirt, and slowly climbed my way back to the top of the mountain.

I doubt I shall ever go back there again. My memories are firmly inside my heart and what was once there truly exists no more outside it, except for a buried journal protected by the roots of an old, old tree. A part of me wishes I could remember what words I wrote for me to find years later, but the mists of time and the years of living have eroded those words. Perhaps it is all as it should be. But aching muscles and all as I sat in my car preparing for the long drive back home, I was and am so glad I took this journey. I've been writing about different parts of it for years.




1558 words