I am a little girl. Well, not so little, really. I’m 12, and for pity sake, I can’t believe my parents are just barely allowing me to walk down to the end of my road all by myself! The whole world is large here. The trees look like huge stalks of broccoli waving against that cathedral blue sky. And there’s a trail I just have to explore. Two, actually. One splits off to the left. It’s beyond the end of the road, behind the logs and the metal fence that never kept any one of us out. This trail rolls off into the distance. There are telephone poles every so often, standing forlornly against the full forest. Why are there telephone poles down here? Are there cabins in the woods in need of connection? The other path is cut through tall, tall grass. It’s almost obscured, really, but I can just make it out as I push through the weeds and the lady bugs and the ticks. It disappears into the woods where a more certain trail takes over soon. It winds past whispering springs and is interrupted by fallen logs that I hop over or crawl under or play balance beam on. Yeah, the whole world is big back here. It doesn’t stop. It is endlessly possible, and I am free in it, finally allowed to explore on my own where the little flowers, close to the ground, are the beauties that catch my eye.
I am not a little girl anymore. Well, I’m not supposed to be. I am 22, and this is the last place of refuge I can think of. It is the day after…well, just the day after. The house is full of well-wishers and sympathy-givers and “If you need anything, just call.” I almost run, I am so desperate, so hurt, so empty and angry and scared. And when I find these two trails again, the ones I used to think held the entire world between them, the tears come. They spill over my eye lashes and drip down the side of my nose, into my hair at my temples, fall into my collar, and this, the end of my road, is suddenly the smallest and most confined place behind all the blur. I take the trail with the telephone poles. I walk and then run and then stop mid-stride, and something tiny and warbling escapes my throat. It is a whimper, a plea just before it becomes a howl, a long, loud, high, “NOOOOO!” It turns into, “Where the hell were You?” and “How could you leave us?” and “What if I turn out like this?” and “I love you.” It spends me until I am crouched low amidst the tall weeds and the odd, ugly bits of dead leaves. I spread my fingers over the dirt and press down into the ground that will soon hold him.
I am a little girl again, reduced. The world is huge and cold, and I am small in it.
There's such poignancy and power in these two different portraits of this same place. The symbolism of this as "the end of the road" is profound and moving.
ReplyDeleteAimee, reading this, I feel your pain right in the pit of my stomach...I wish I didn't know how a place we have loved and that once held unlimited delights and possibilities could be seen and experienced through the cracked lens of heartbreak. But, of course, I do.
ReplyDeleteYou are very brave to face those trails again. To go back and revisit them through a 12 year old's eye, and then again on a very dark day when you are 22. As you have shared with us over the past weeks, this is a place where the sun still shines on you, a place that will welcome you and surprise you over and over again.
All the best, on this very painful walk of yours. Keep writing, I really do believe it its power to transform our pain.
I loved the title. I loved the post. It is strong and real and visceral and I was crying a little bit by the end. Good job.
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