January 23, 2011 / paperkids

The road that is no more

I’ll never forget the first day we drove out to our house in the country. I was about 8 years old and the move didn’t have me nearly as rattled as mom. I didn’t care that much about our house in the suburbs and didn’t really miss the kids in the neighborhood or even being so close to the beach as we had been. I remember sitting in the back of a pickup with my brother. It’s funny how that was not a big deal back then. The dirt roads were mostly shale and there was even a narrow strip of grass growing right down the middle of them. It seems like we were on that road forever before finally pulling onto the longest driveway I’d ever seen with a small brown house resting at the end of it. When we hopped out of the back, the grass was so tall, it felt like we were wading through it. It was the strangest feeling – the smells and the tiny gnats and seeds blustering away. Dad took the machete and began to hack away at the growth behind the house, while mom looked utterly horrified at the condition of the inside of the house, what with the horrifying kitchen and green shaggy carpets. It needed a LOT of tender loving care and she hadn’t really got around to loving it much yet. Then I could hear dad’s voice, still gruff, but going up with a hint of something else.

“There’s a barn back here!!”

Could it really be that the grass and weeds were so tall that there was a whole barn back there and we didn’t even know it!!?

So this is how the great adventure of exciting childhood exploration came about. So many old relics to find tucked away in the old barn. And so many unexplored places out in the woods.

I have been thinking a lot about my childhood lately. I think it’s probably because Emma is about the same age that I was when I was completely submersed in my imaginary world with the backdrop of our new neighborhood – Hidden Acres. (no joke, that was, and is, the name)

At the age of nine, I would slip off into the woods for hours. Dad had carved out pathways through the rough palmettos and we would explore all throughout our property and into other territories as well. Down the dirt road there was a grassy path we could cut through to the small local creek. The water was dark red I was told from the cypress trees. Sometimes that small path would have berries growing and we would stop to eat them. In the back of our property a little stream of water flowed. But to me it was like a raging river and I would set up my little people on big sturdy leaves that would ride down the rapids and into the dark, waxy ferns and unknown wooded wilderness.

I was Gayle Gulley. That was who I was everyday after school. For hours the narrow dirt roads would be my portals into other worlds and a small clearing would be my home. I could have friends and adventures and get older. All in one day!

“Who are you talking to out there, Sabra?”

My dad’s voice would boom and echo across the open pasture to the place where I circled, talking away to my “friends”. I would momentarily be yanked away from saving the day. He wasn’t really curious or worried. Just checking in…maybe teasing a little. But my parents NEVER tried to change this behavior even when I continued to do it much later than any “normal” child ever thought to. Maybe some would have called it inappropriate even, but mom and dad never seemed to care about that kind of thing.

my brother and I in the old barn

So many adventures tucked away somewhere in my mind. I don’t think I could remember them if I tried. That dirt road has since been paved over and that stream in the back has dried up. The paths of those woods have grown over. I don’t remember when that world began to slip away, but one day it was just gone. Replaced with other explorations of adolescents and the world of long phone calls and boyfriends. A childhood imagination seems to die out like a flame that at one time burns so bright it calls forth all that could be possibly be magical in the world. I wish I could visit those places again.