Unit 1. Reminders of Home

     There’s an old creek by my home, it wanders its way through the lower parts of my neighborhood. One part of this creek feels particularly special. The tiny overpass that the creek creeps through acts as a point where two things meet, where nature and people come together. In one brief moment one can become engulfed in the majesty of the place. A sense of enclosure comes over you as the tree’s cover one side of the creek bed as though fingers curling around an insect. Then you notice the water, scarcely deep enough to get your feet wet in most places. It doesn’t rumble of thunder or moan. Instead it trickles quaintly as the water skids its way through the long concrete tunnel with light pecking through the other side. If you look carefully, really carefully you can watch the bits of dirt and rock get picked up where the water is the fastest and then get deposited as soon as they were elevated when the stream slowed once again.

     The concrete structure itself is imposing, atop it sets the road, “the road” because it’s the only entrance or exit out of my little neighborhood. On each side at the top comes an extension of the blacktop of the road onto the flow tunnel itself. And at its end a concrete slab, just large enough to sit and just wide enough to walk on if you have faith in your balance. Creating a perfect perch from which to watch the creek below. After following the rocky outcrops around it down into the bed itself a slab of smooth stone sits beneath the road and flow tunnels. Just after that the water starts to deepen. Just beyond that however is an area where the ground comes up from the water as dirt plateaul, surrounded by deeper water where one can stand and feel as though invited to a wildlife exhibit. With some patience and the right weather, you can watch little critters scatter across the water. From the ever elegant water skidder; to the always hiding never moving crawfish the stream is alive. I imagine to one of these creatures I must look imposing, dwarfing them so absolutely. I wonder if they can see me. Do they notice me at all? They seem to go on about their day as if I hadn’t ever existed. How much one can learn about perspective from such tiny creature

     People and their things are often heard and seen from my creek. Loud cars the yelling’s of bitter neighbors discarded soda cups the things people forget about at a place they’ve never known. I speak of “people” infringing on ”my” place. This is hardly fair on my part. It’s only “my” place because I grew up here and I have memories here.  My greatest childhood friend and I spent many, many days there. We went there as a way to escape. It was a place that seemed serene whenever we’d have troubles with life whether it was a teacher who irked us, his hectic home, life or something as simple as the state of our lives. It was a place all to our own. We used to talk about it as though it was our home, sitting there with feet dangling off the side, twelve feet from the water below. It was heaven to us. A place free from parents’ rules, and expectation, a place where everything falls gently into serenity. We eventually decided to mark it. Taking this obnoxious white graffiti paint we painted our names onto the flat of the concrete. How simple those days were. When spending hours at one place not doing anything or thinking of doing anything wasn’t a vacation, it was what was.

     It wasn’t until many years later however that I realized how circular life was. My friend had long since moved away, we stayed in contact but we had largely gone our different ways. He had returned to my home for a visit and like clockwork we returned to the creek, our creek, only to find it crawling with kids. Kids that were the age we were when we spent all of our time there. We spoke about the confusion we had felt by this for some length. I remember being torn between two thoughts. I was, on the one hand glad that others could have the opportunity to have a part of their lives a memory with which I so greatly cherished. On the other, irate that those little devils would dare taint my little heaven with their grubby little hands. More than anything, I realized then that the places we are drawn as kids feel very different as an adult. It’s as though the sunlight suddenly felt cold on your skin, you can still recognize it but it is so starkly different that you immediately realize that the sanctuary you found comfort in as a child would never move you the same way again.