Summer Time Ago

D.B.Townsend

We park off the roadway near the old house where Aunt Hannah and Grandma Bradley grew up. The home had been remodeled years ago, yet the old board and bat portion is still evident through a cluster of maple and elm trees grown from saplings when they were kids, now standing mature and brushing close to the second-story windows. Their parents had bought the land and built the home in the mid-1800s. Although the addition is near twice the size of the original structure, you can see clear evidence of the original house amidst the upgrades. I had taken pictures with an old Argus camera in years past, so I have shots comparing the old house with the new, grander home. It sits just a hundred yards from the creek bed, which we traversed along an overgrown path of grasses and wildflowers. This trail has seen few feet trampling along its now hidden path in recent years. I, at my young age, realize we are on a hidden treasure of exploration. It is knee-deep in blooming color, each side of the trail overflowing with tall wild stems of subtle amber, bright lavender, and muted shades of blue-green.

I hear the creek rushing swiftly along. Larger rocks create whirlpools holding the flow of the current momentarily along the stream, creating eddies around each stone's smoothed edges. Aunt Hannah leads the way, stopping twice when she hears a bird in the nearby trees. Listen", she whispers as she looks up, pointing to the left.

"See the Cardinal up there? About mid-way up that oak on a branch to the right of the trunk," I focus diligently and soon find the red-feathered bird singing its heartfelt song. Next, she hears a different tune but can only guess it's likely a yellow-rumped warbler as we never spot the bird hidden so purposefully. We continue along the weed-lined path to the creek, its novelty and mystery laid out across the beckoning landscape. The creek summons. A few steps later, the creek is fully revealed, flowing waters open before us.

The creek itself is only a foot or so deep, so we walk between the larger rocks and head upstream to one of Hannah's favorite spots, where the creek opens wide and becomes calmer. No other place is more deeply imbued with memories of Aunt Hannah, so permeated with her presence.

We forage along the banks to find berries and mint, which we intend to take back home, yet eat most along the way. The water splashes against the rocks. It is soothing and comforting as my mind begins to vacate any pejorative thoughts of my home and the many uncertainties of dealing with my parents' separation. A few of the larger stones are blocking the flow as they were downstream, where in my imagination, there must have been a couple of these purposely placed to create a sort of footbridge at one time when the water was high.

We find a couple of flat rocks and make a small table by stacking them to create a picnic setting to lay out our tuna sandwiches and chips, delving into our lunch. Hannah's tuna salad was the one thing I will remember from this day forward. Whenever I open a can at home, my thoughts migrate to how delicate she made this gourmet luncheon with her perfect mix of tuna, mayonnaise, celery, pickles, and lemon juice.

The smaller rocks under the shallow water glimmer like polished jewels. Blue, azure shades reflective of the sky and clear waters glimmer. Colors of nature amplified in relative fluorescence as the water's constant flow gleans over them with barely millimeters of depth heightening their beauty; the colors blown to enormous proportions in my mind, similar to what in later years I’ll encounter while taking mescaline at Houghton Lake in Michigan, skating across the lake with near magical colors glistening between layers of the ice.

Hannah is a kindergarten teacher. A natural extension of her warm, vivacious personality is her uncanny way of cleverly showing me an undiscovered world of landscapes so new and exhilarating, I’m overjoyed with stimulation without a hint of knowing I’m being taught valuable lessons. A teacher of children even younger than me, I am about to be inundated by her vast experience, embraced by a world foreign to me in the weeks ahead. As we sit on larger boulders, indulging in the glorious tuna sandwiches, we hear the rustling of the shoreline vegetation. A fawn and its mother appear along the water's edge about 40 feet from us upstream. The mother looks toward us and then proceeds to drink from the stream, allowing her young one to do the same. It is calming and serene. A moment of elation in my mind, as I rarely had seen a deer this close, while realizing I needed to be silent and move as subtly as possible. The enchanted wind mingles with the fragrance of wild poppies and tall pollen-filled grasses. The mother fears not for the fawn as she knows we are in a resting state, not a threat to her young one.

This is a day in which one takes in the moment and fully embrace the beauty and intricacies of nature. The deer drink, Momma glances occasionally to check on us. Then suddenly, a leap onto the bank, and they dart off to the nearby trees with little effort. Hannah exclaims, "I bet you don't see that very often living in the city! "No, I don't think I've ever been that close to a deer.

"When your grandmother and I were kids, there were so many deer we had to build a high wire fence around our gardens to keep them away,” Hannah remarks. "Did you grow tomatoes back then?" I ask, reminded of the yellow tomatoes Hannah now has blooming in the backyard at her modest home back in town. "Tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, and small leaf lettuces, as well," she says, staring off into the sky as if she pictured herself, as a child, on a farm again.

After lunch, we stroll the creek bed for unusual rocks and colored stones. Most of the tiny stones were worn round and smooth, a few with jagged edges as if they'd recently been hurled at more enormous boulders and broken from the impact. I found one just the size to fit in my palm that was a brilliant greenish-blue as if it had been dyed from being buried in an algae bed for years.

"Only take one Hannah indicated with a finger in the air. "We must leave nature to itself and not pull it out of its rightful home in selfish desire."

The sun glares through the trees as the day slowly lingers. The air is life, the sounds symphonic, fanning from every direction. We walk back downstream, heading for the car as the sun is clearly sinking slowly toward the horizon. We sit nearly silent as we drove back home while a classical piano piece softly wafts from the radio. She lets me out at the top of the driveway as she continues downhill into the underground garage below her living room. Back in Hannah's kitchen, the dining table nestles up against the large window, looking out over the street and the apartments across the road. Birds fly by in a constant array of motion. She keeps several feeders around the porch and yard and a large birdbath in the backyard, where an enduring army of colorful winged angels fly in groups. I sit as she pours us tall glasses of water. The water tastes so different here, and I drink with joyous voracity one after another.

So began my first solo visit to my Great Aunt Hannah’s, recalling the many summers before with my grandmother, Hannah’s sister. This year, I’m expecting nothing of the summer, unknowing that my life at ten years old is about to change in ways I will only recognize its impact years from now. It is to be the summer I learn about the grandeur of the Big Dipper and the constellations in the sky; the simplicity of the bird songs from the backyard, the art of creating a melody on the piano, and telling a story of those bluebirds. A universe of far-reaching possibilities I hadn't explored, both from living in a city and from the isolation, pain, and guilt I felt as if being a pawn, at times, in the struggles of my parents' divorce. This is the summer I go from the innocence of childhood into an awareness of adolescent inquiry, the foundation for desire and yearning to know more.