Memories feel like hunger, carving out a space beneath my rib cage, a place of longing. I feel it the moment I step out my glass sliding door into my backyard. The air is so gentle today, warm and beneficent. Immediately, I am an explorer, pushing through the forest, a child so small the whole world looks big. I remember running back here in the summer with neighbor friends. We’d clamber past rocks and over roots, paving a well-loved path through the thick thorns. Now, the woods in my backyard are overgrown. There are no more children, just me.
A garden snake coils before my feet, sleeping in the noon sun. Its black scales shine as if oily, and I decide to enter the thicket a different way. Above me, the Yellow Poplar I sat under after Dad died opens its seeds to the sky. They are woody, splayed, children’s fingers asking for more. I watched this tree give its last in autumn color. I watch its rebirth again and again and again. Maple trees flower nearby, their little red blossoms are pompoms that cheer on the spring. Fleetingly, I recall Dad pointing out these trees to me, crouching to pick up their seeds, shading his eyes against the sun, walking far ahead and fast while we struggled to keep up with his enthusiasm. Now, I explore for him, asking, “What more?”
My little forest fights me every step of the way, but I manage to keep bristles from my hair and skin as I walk deeper. The greenest plants are the thorns, ironically. They wind and twist, trapping and snagging. I want to get all the way back, though. There’s a field we used to play in when it snowed. Now that I stand before it, the branches are too thick to fight through. Suddenly, a snapshot comes to mind, unbidden, but warm. These thorns, weighed down with snow, curve like weeping willows so that we can climb through, our snow pants and coats catching all the pickers, not our skin.
But it’s only a memory, and I don’t expect I’ll be able to go back again. It is cut off from me, a past I don’t fit into anymore. Birds twitter in the bushes, and the sun is kind, but I’m stuck here, between the middle and the beginning. Little alcoves I loved when I was a little girl are too small for me now. I look, but find it hard to see because, even if I know where he is not, my heart won’t stop searching for him here. Thickets of thorns stand in my way. I am trapped.
"The greenest plants are the thorns, ironically." I was noticing that the other day. It is rather odd how that happens. Your backyard must be a splendid place late spring to early fall. You've got so many plant species in your backyard. It is interesting seeing it colored through the loss of your dad.
ReplyDeleteIt is beautiful! Right now, it's kind of stuck in this weird place where it's not colorful, but it's not entirely barren. I was thinking yesterday that I wish I'd chosen a more beautiful place, but I guess it's just stuck in the middle at the moment too.
ReplyDeleteAimee, regardless of if you wish you chose "a more beautiful place," I think this is your most beautiful, poetic blog post to date. I love it. From the way you begin, "Memories feel like hunger," to the way you end, "I am trapped," this post is fantastic. It really captures an emotion, the strange way that you can be stuck between past and present. I also really enjoy how you describe the way you don't fit anymore, that you've changed, this place has changed. I think the best part is that the physical landscape you describe actually imitates your emotions and cuts you off from your past. It becomes a character here.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that stood out to me is that you say, "There are no more children, just me." In continuing to read, though, I find that you are still a daughter, a child. And, of course, the land is a child, as it is in process of being reborn. Very interesting dichotomy... and something to think about! :)
"Memories feel like hunger..." Very well stated--and full of acuity, this observation. I wonder if there's relation to this feeling and those "Little alcoves I loved when I was a little girl are too small for me now." Two wonderful lines. Nicely perceptive. You know, I am not sure that you need what follows "Memories feel like hunger?" Or if you could condense/combine the two ideas that follow in this line into one single one. Love these two lines noted.
ReplyDeleteAimee,
ReplyDeleteAll I can do is echo the words of praise offered by our classmates. The caliber of this post is such that it's quintessential to the genre: You could hand it to a student brand new to nature writing and it'd suggest what it's all about. While the piece is structurally and topically a little reminiscent of Scott Russell Sanders, it's worth mentioning you've found a voice, here, that's wholly yours.
By the way: "Memories feel like hunger, carving out a space beneath my rib cage, a place of longing" -- I've never read such a description of a pit in the stomach that resonates so accurately and meaningfully as this.
Well done, really.
-- Steve W.
We've been reading about your place, and some of the same themes of loss, all semester, but each time you show us a little more, deepen our understanding of it by degrees. Such a poignant and powerful meditation, over something that is seemingly simple.
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