Wednesday, March 19, 2014

My Own Heaven

 on a fall morning in 2011-take it as though the first time i went to this place when i was home for fall after my hecktic life was coming to an end-I sat and went to this spot day after day-built a bench out of river rocks to sit theree-Then one afternoon I went to my spot and low and behold there sat my grandfather-Wwent to telling me how he use to come down here when he was younger- when he met my grandma this is where he took her and they feel in love growing up in high school-

It all began on a day unlike any other back in the fall of 2011, following a night I would not soon forget. With the windows rolled down and my head resting gently on the window seal my eyes fixed on the stars staying still as we went seventy-five down the barren highway. Not a cloud in the sky obstructed the view of the beach ball sized moon rising in the distant. A bump in the road bounced my head off the window seal making my eyes finally blink, looking back at my mother, my cheeks tighten, dimples formed and a sense of happiness fell over my body. Her eyes focused, both hands tightened their grip around the wheel, as her body was exhusted, from spending the entire day parked beside that hospital bed, praying franticily beside someone, I did not even know existed, he would come to and walk out of that place a better man. Taking it all in and knowing good and well she had no desire to look my way I gently rested my face onto the cool window seal once again finding the moon, my little hair that was left flew in every direction as tears rolled out of my eyes, nothing else matter at that moment. Not even why my mother looked like hell, or where we had been the whole day, or even who I was, all that seemed important was the moon and how It stayed perfectly in place as we flew down the highway inching our way closer and closer to the edge of highway. 
We pasted hundreds if not thousands old tattered and bending telephone poles lit up by a full moon, small town city limit sign blew by us in a flash words all a blur. Speed limit signs might as well been flatted to the ground or turned to the side, flying by with no regard with what the speed limit might have been. Soft soothing soundwaves of Led Zeplain made their way between the roaring wind on the night, Jimmy Page guitar riffs standing up the hairs running down my forearms followed by small bumps making their way to surface of my skin, causing my whole body into a shiver. As the minutes turned into hours we turned off the smooth sailing of the highway, we turned onto our country road litter with loose gravel, leaves and twigs, toward the house that I called home for the past ten years. Pulling into the driveway the moon blasting its reflection onto the empty front yard giving way to the silouette of the fifites ranch style house.
Opening the door swinging my barefeet to the gravel driveway thanking the good Lord I had finally made it home. Slowly raising myself out the passenger seat I felt like a infant my legs began to shake, losing all confidence in my legs I fell backwards into the passenger seat. Embraccing my defeat of the first attempt, grabbing the car door once again thrusting myself to an upright position, with my body now feeling my age again, I high step across the driveway crunging in pain as each and every little rock pierce and stick into the heel of my feet stopping every few steps to dust them off take a breather and make my way forward toward the soft brumunda grass awaiting my like a trophy at the end of a basketball tournament. Once safely arriving at the cool dew lined grass in my front yard my body once again collapses and falls face forward onto the grass. Not wanting to face the embarssment of another failure before making it to the front door, weighing the benefits of being inside and laying right here in the grass, my mind is made up and I continue to lay in the grass. Hearing ever so often the echoing sounds of Coyotes calling back and forth to each other all around.
After laying on the grass the back of my tshirt was not damp and began pruning my back in the process. Glancing down at the watch on my left wrist the time read off 5:00 AM, my body still going strong I put both palms face down on the grass and pushed myself to feet again grabbed my shoes, took off for a walk. Making my way up the gravel road litter lined the edges of road. Beer cans, soda bottles, and plastic bags drew my attention one every fifteen or two paces. Reaching a gated strip of land, planting my foot on the bottom rusty barb wire fence my great grandpa put up when he bought the land back in 1886.(Nicholson) Top foot went onto the top wire and jumped to the ground making my way further into uncharted territory, making a sharp turn to the east this is when the adventure really started.
Orange and Yellow engulfed trees line a beaten down walkway whining back and forth around hundred-year-old stumps slowly wearing away from past seasons full of snow, ice and bugs burrowing, deep down, inside to find some warmth. Soothing breezes scatter leaves to and fro across the pathway and collect against thousand-year-old sycamore trees growing like a skyscraper toward the sky. Perched looking for any sort of moment on the ground an owl waits patiently for his next meal to scurry for his morning breakfast. Tip Toeing through bushes lined with thorns the walkway ends at the edge with what appears to be seventy feet of straight drop. A fresh cutting of alfalfa flows across with the breeze overwhelming the air. Songbirds began to wake up for the first time, calling out to one another seemingly begging for attention. Leaves begin to crunch and crackle with the small footsteps of grey and red squirrels scratching frantically for anything to store away. Sun rays make their way through the maze of vines and limb finally reaching the ground floor and exposing the most adventurous and captivating sight one could lay eyes on. Below the rock's ledge, a river twist for endless miles slowly cruising from east to west with its banks bending around thousand-year-old sycamores and old barbed-wire fencing. My eyes reach further out caught by a sight one can merely dream of the shade of the bluff being scared slowing away across a mile-wide bottom by the rising sun. Reaching down with  right hand, I run my finger through the cool wet moss and wipe the dirt from my forehead. In the distant, the owl gives off a hoot answered with an awaking and alarming gobble of turkeys waking up closer than normal. With my left hand, I hold on to the small sapling rooted in deep in the cracks of the bluff and through my legs over the edge, and into cracks broken away by the millions of years of ice and rain. Switching stability and trust of the solid ground to hopes and prayers of the rock edge make my way down, what, in reality, the fifteen foot descends. Moving sideways every now and again to miss the tiny stream flowing over the rock on its way down to the river as well. Getting only about five feet from the ground I let go, falling the rest of the way to the ground, landing in a monstrous pile of leaves covering me everything from the waist line to my feet. Walking out of pile brushing the tiny broken pieces of leaves off the worn down and tattered wrangler blue Jean. Another path begins appearing to be the one less traveled winding its way through endless amounts of small ankle ripping thorn bushes, small streams making their way to the waters edge. The path begining to become harder and harder to follow up and over rotten fallen trees jumping over them continuing on the few couple hour adventure. Looking up my eyes fixed, where I could only imagine the path would lead to, a mammoth weeping willow sat on the edge of the river. In full bloom I slowly made my way through its damp filled branch cooling my face in the process once inside the size and age become real. The trunks base could not be contained in my 6 foot arm span, the roots span out for yards and buldging up out at the edges of the falling branching.



My grandfathers spot-where he took grandma-where he went to escape-How he will still go down there and venture even to this day at age 77-


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