We moved. This time not across the country, but it was a rental and the owner gave us notice--he was getting married and planned to move in, so we house-hunted in the general area since we were attached to the Catholic grade school my brother and I attended. My parents bought their first house, smaller, but with a dry basement and a huge backyard that sloped sharply down to a creek. It was common ground--from my perspective, it led into endless woods while in reality, having driven around it as an adult, it was only a hundred yards deep at most.
Although it was our first house we actually owned, and my father was getting his MBA and things in reality, looking back, were really on an upswing for us, it was when I felt the poorest. It was probably the size of the house, plus my mother had another baby while we lived there, so it was 6 people in an 800 square foot two bedroom one bath house with a cramped eat in kitchen and an unusable living room space not big enough for a couch along a wall.
But it did have that basement, and more importantly, it had that creek.
That creek had a bridge, an old concrete bridge that connected two fallow fields. The bridge grew grass on top and it never occurred to me that someone mowed it. I never once encountered anyone over the age of 12 in the common ground or in the creek. Mostly it was my brother Ian and myself--the neighborhood we moved into was overwhelmingly empty nesters and single people. I was the only inhabitant of my own imaginary forest. I was a fan of Tolkien and LeGuin and of course had a knowledge of European fairy tales. Those woods held all of it.
We only lived in that house for a year--from the spring of my 4th grade year to the August before my 6th grade year--but I also read this book, about a fantasy land created by two outcast pre-teens and even then I knew I was living it. That creek, that bridge, those woods--they were a space of my own, in a time of my life when nothing was certain. They weren't anything like my own but they were mine.
Beautiful. I was a free-range kid, raised on the edge of a forest, where we roamed whenever we wanted (except the beginning of deer season). I owned every inch of it, even though it belonged to people I never met.
ReplyDeleteOh, so wonderful.
ReplyDeleteYour own woods, how wonderful. I had a creek though - to me it was the Pacific and the Atlantic and anything I wanted it to be.
ReplyDeleteLovely description and memories. Everyone needs this kind of enchanted space to let their bodies and minds run wild in.
ReplyDeleteI didn't read this until I was an adult. Nevertheless I loved it a lot. I remember taking a walk somewhere in Maryland and finding what I considered a perfect Terabithia. My husband, who'd also read the book, agreed. After that I discovered that the author lived in Maryland.
ReplyDeleteI, too, hung out at a creek as a kid. It wasn't at the end of my yard, but a couple blocks away. What fun we kids had that I don't see most kids nowadays having.
I should read this. I've been hearing great things about it since the 1990s.
ReplyDeleteI've never read it either, though I grew up beside a small river (and now live on a creek). I'll add it to the list.
ReplyDelete