

The neighborhood I grew up in - so very long ago - was calm and quiet. I think my very clearest recollection of that place is of just the color green. A lurid and vibrant green, as far as my poor eyes, at least, could see. The trees were resplendent in soft summer sun, the aspen in the sunlight glittering, the old and dying oak singing into the wind. I think I identified with this place as I grew with the trees, perhaps too much with the graceful aspens, for I too am falling apart as I near my twentieth year. If I look back through myself, I can see the spring flowers again, quiet snowdrops braving the first thaws. I always liked the snowdrops best, they didn't need all the color of the showy summer flowers, or the scents of the free and wild flowers that were perhaps more sensible in waiting longer before emerging. They had the most graceful form, the most lovely shape of all, and needed no trumpets to herald their beauty. 

I supposed this isn't quite the standard neighborhood to be telling you about. Truthfully I don't think I grew up in a neighborhood at all. There was only my family with me and the forest. Only one other wooden home, carved from the landscape and standing just past the valley. My father's sister. And her family. I don't think her children were meant for this place, they left every chance they could, and they didn't look a part of the forest. They wore makeup, brought loud music through the trees, stepped on the flowers. Seeing my brother and me, covered in mud, planting pines along the fence, or perhaps simply sitting in the grass, well over our heads as my father didn't mow that section, they would seem so puzzled. And several times they asked us over, to dress us in different clothes, or try to brush my hair, or entreaty my brother into cutting his to a more 'boyish' length. I always felt we didn't speak the same language to each other. 

There were no stores or shops in my neighborhood. There was a garden my mother planted and every year her tomatoes died. There was a blight in the soil and tomatoes are a frightfully sensitive plant. I could never see why she kept trying. There were brambles behind the house, and if you looked very carefully and didn't mind the scratches you could find blackberries there. I remember Saturday was when my father, and sometimes with my brother or myself in tow, would go to the store, a very far distance. I think just under an hour by car, on the highway that ran past our little red rock road. Groceries were stocked up, and the closer to winter the more we filled the extra refrigerator in the garage - just in case. Of course. I do very fondly recall the one local source of nourishment, however slight, in the great old maple, just past the little blue barn and down the flat dirt wagon road, just beginning to be swallowed back up by the forest. 

