When I was about six or seven years old, I often visited "The Hill" with my friend, whom I'll call MC. It was a little strip of raised earth next to the fence which bordered the local Elks Club chapter's picnic facility. It measured about one hundred feet long, three feet high, and five feet in width (from the fence to the sidewalk). Located at the end of our street, it beckoned to us as one of the only "wilderness areas" within our reach. Large, graceful pine trees on the other side of the fence shaded our Hill, and the dirt we sat on was covered with pine needles, making it a comfortable place to stay for long stretches of time.
And stay we did, for whole afternoons, although I don't have the foggiest recollection of what we did there. What I remember is that it seemed huge to us, this little strip of land; and we felt it was a secluded, private retreat, someplace created just for us. (Certainly, we were the only ones who visited it.) It was our own faraway place, the kind that only young children create, and the kind they never forget.
I thought about this today, quite suddenly, as I was driving my son around for half an hour to let him continue his nap (yes, I did this again--as stated in an earlier post, I'm not proud of burning fossil fuels so my son can sleep, but I can honestly say that it's only happened a handful of times since he was born). I felt running through me again, for the first time in ages, that sense of seclusion, protectedness and adventure that MC and I felt on The Hill, and one or two other special, half-secret places. I then prayed to some unknown god, in the hope that my son will find such a place himself and enjoy it for years and years--perhaps with an equally dear friend at his side.
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