Not quite the middle of nowhere...

As we were driving back from Seattle’s Best this morning, I noticed that a few of the trees are sort of changing color. The ones that line the median on the way into our neighborhood are kind of yellow. Well, yellowISH. Maybe yellowish green. But they’re definitely NOT "green" green. And it’s cool and windy today – unlike yesterday, when the temperature ONCE AGAIN managed to climb into the high 80’s. It’s like, yeah, we’re in the middle of autumn – but only every other day and for about 24 hours at a time…

Writing about trees and leaves makes me think of our first house in New Jersey. We’d never lived in a place with so many trees and hills and squirrels and deer. Our house was surrounded by vegetation, and between the acre or so of land between our house and the house next door, there was a large, sloping, wooded area. Eric and I immediately claimed it as our own, and began exploring, looking for the easiest way to get around through the maze of trees and underbrush.

After a couple weeks of intrepid exploration, we discovered that there was a “right way” and a “wrong way” to descend through the hilly woods. Walking in one direction might lead you to a tangle of impassable vines and roots… but take a few steps in another direction, and you could easily keep walking. Eventually, it became an everyday routine to run outside the front door of the house, walk toward the backyard, step into the shady trees, and meander along the path we’d worn. What had originally looked like a nonsensical, random arrangement of natural flora had become quite familiar. We knew exactly where the tree was that signaled a detour to the left… we knew where those rocks were that we had to step around… we knew to avoid the tree root that could easily trip a person.

And what’s more, some of our landmarks turned into much grander settings in our imaginations. The boulder that sat halfway down the hill became “Lookout Point” – where we could sit and watch cars attempting the tight turn in the road at the bottom. The large, round hollow between the trees – which was always filled with fallen leaves, no matter the time of year – became “The Leaf Pond.” There were others, as well, but most of them seem to have escaped my memory (do you remember any more, Eric?). And we were so proud of our own little nature preserve, that I decided one day to paint signs for all of our landmarks. I broke down some of the cardboard boxes we’d used in the move from Texas, cut them into big rectangles, and pulled out some acrylic paints.

I soon had colorfully-decorated signs with “Lookout Point” and “The Leaf Pond” – and all the others I can’t remember – painted in careful lettering. I took my usual walk through the woods, carrying my signs, and placed each one near its respective landmark. I can’t remember how I attached them – did I nail them to trees? – but those signs remained a fixture in our woods until rain and snow and heat and sun eventually took their toll.

The woods was more than just woods to us – it was a cool place to show our friends when they came over… it was (literally) a cool place to retreat in the middle of summer… it was the place where I could take a book and sit at “Lookout Point” and feel like I was miles away from home. It was easy to walk through those trees, and get lost in thought, and forget that a real world was mere steps away.

It seems when we get older, we’re less inclined to go hang out amongst dirt and leaves and bugs… or sit on a boulder and read a novel… or paint silly signs to memorialize our landscaping. But it’s still nice to have a “retreat” of some sort. I guess we just never outgrow the need to get away from “real life” once in a while…