Almost a Forest

I love to hear the pine-needles whisper among the wind. When the sun sets the trees blacken against the painted sky or crimson and orange. These are the same trees I grew up with. Echoes of laughter pour in from years long past. Time spent out among this yard, encompassed by its trees, comes flooding back into my mind's eye.

I inhale the smell of my neighbors burning leaves or grilling nearby. It seems like just yesterday I was out here with my parents at our own little fire, cooking hot-dogs and roasting marshmallows.

There are some changes, after the years. Our tire swing is gone. There is a house we spent a great deal of time in gone as well. But the main house, my grandmothers house, remains still. It's beautiful.

It's painted dark green and there's a deck with three levels wrapped almost all of the way around. A large sweet-gum tree, much resembling a maple, shades the picnic table out front. I sit there and drink my coffee in the mornings and reminisce about my childhood.

How many mornings were spent down at the end of the driveway, waiting for the bus to go to school? How many nights were my siblings and I outside until well past dark, running around until we finally had to be called in by our parents?

I think of holidays past. I think of all of the changes I've gone through in this place. From baby, to toddler, to child, to teen and finally to adult. I've moved away here and there, but this place will always hold more magic to me than anything in the world.

Now, I watch my son play in the yard as I once did. I watch him look up to the same pines that watched me grow. I watch him skip around a cypress tree and watch as he digs the same holes I dug and catches the same lizards and bugs.

For now, I have other reminders here too. My grandmother is still alive, thankfully. She chats with me in the mornings and that's always a comfort. She's raised me, you know? Half of my life, I've looked to her for guidance. And she is my comfort, her and this land I love so. You can't have one without the other.

I hope one day that I will grow old here and that I will be able to watch my son's children play here and after that, his children's children. That would be a dream come true.

I will have a vast garden this summer. I think it will be the greatest comfort for my troubled thoughts to toil the land and grow vegetables and flowers as I'll be able to give back some of the beauty that's been given to me from this land.

No matter how bad things have gotten, I always have a home here. Maybe that's why it's such a comfort? Or perhaps it's the safety of it all as year after year, hurricanes batter this land and yet it retains its peace and serenity. Never have I gone anywhere else and felt as safe as I do when I'm here. It's almost as though this land is protecting me. It could also be that it blocks out the sound from the highway nearby which gives the illusion I'm far away from the every day hustle and bustle.

Whatever it is, I'll always be here. I'll always return to this place. If, for some reason, I move away and never see this place again, it'll always be in my heart. Luckily, I have a memory that would keep it just as I see it now, always.