Walking on this gravel dirt road, I take in the sights and smells. The dust from the road is as familiar as the many times I have walked this route. It has been dry lately, so dry that I can taste the dust, usually an unpleasant taste however at this moment quite comforting.
Stopping at the crossroads, I look toward the empty spot in the middle of the meadow, the spot where my earliest memories were formed. From the distant past I can almost hear sounds of laughter, children playing, and sounds of life yet, there is silence. For just a moment, I feel vulnerable, lost, disconnected. I need to keep walking but the past tugs at my heart, the past that ties me to this empty meadow.
Turning away, I walk toward the grassier road across from the meadow that over time is becoming a field once again. It�s been years since a motor vehicle has driven on this road and that is as it should be. None of the rocks have been overturned in some time and that fills me with content�it is all how I remember it to be, all these years later. Along this abandoned road a stone wall borders the weeds that grow prolifically. Sometime in the past a farmer clearing his fields set these stones one by one to make way for the wheat or the corn he would plant to feed his livestock. These telltale signs speak to me; they tell me the stories that have long been forgotten and as I walk I try to fill in the blanks. Eventually I make my way deep into the forest to the broken down remnants of a very old and forgotten stone foundation. There is little left here but stone and weeds but you can see where once a house stood in the middle of nothing. As a child I wondered about the inhabitants of this forgotten home. Did they have children? How did they survive? Was their existence dependant on the food they grew, the animals they raised, and the little they carried with them when they settled in this young forest land so long ago? I would never know for sure. I yearned to know, yet I rather not. I prefer to let my imagination guide me, then and now, the sights and the scents taking me along this journey, providing as many questions as answers.
A clearing in the woods gives way to a cluster of old, woody grapevines. I grab a hold and swing on one of those vines��Yeehaw!� I feel young again! Everything is as it was; as it should be. As I resume walking, I relish the scent of the forest floor, that woodsy, fresh peat moss smell. It�s quite a contrast to the earlier dirt road yet as equally appealing. Everything here smells new yet it seems to be unchanging. Continuing to walk, I become aware of the sound of my footsteps on the forest floor, sure and certain thumps on the solid, yet springy ground and more of a soft, swooshing sound on the grassy areas. Crickets, bees, and the sounds of nature abound�a symphony of music that has a calming effect. Or is that the pulse of the forest, the heartbeat of all that lives in this enchanting spot, whether truly alive or only in memory? I ponder these things as I continue my walk.
Finally, I reach the creek and I must stop. The creek is nature�s boundary telling me I can go no further unless I am prepared to actually get my feet wet. Don�t misunderstand me, I am not afraid; I have done it often, only this time, I prefer to stay calm. I prefer to resist the sharp rocks in the current and the slippery moss whose trickery causes one to fall full-fledged into the icy cold rippling waters without warning.
Once again, I continue back the route from where I came, retracing my steps, reliving the past but this time with a different interpretation. Each time something is perceived in a new way and each time a different depth of contentment is found. I pass the grapevines, the abandoned stone foundation, the stone wall built so long ago. Eventually, I am back where I began, on the dusty dirt road that I walked many times as a child. Once again I am at the crossroads, near the empty spot in the meadow, where the homestead once stood, my homestead, that later burned to the ground, never to be rebuilt. I imagine for just a moment what it once looked like. My memories play like a slide show in my head, different slides playing every time I revisit. Some are pleasant and some are not. I have made peace with the past. I have let go of blame long ago.
A house is simply a building. A home stays in our memories; a home extends beyond the confines of wood and plaster walls. A place can be many things to many people. I have a house, a home, a place of my own, but deeply engrained and preserved forever in my memories this place, this forest, and this meadow shall too, always be home.
Diane Rumbel... Sept 21, 2005