Once upon a time there were two girls who were 3 months apart in age and inseparable when they were in the same state every other weekend. When they weren't playing football with the boys, these girls could be found riding bikes. Their top 3 destinations included Mandinos for cheese fries, Vans for random office supplies, gum, or Jones soda, and -- more often than not -- the park. They loved to sit by the creek under the bridge.
In movies it'd be the kind of bridge and creek that would be tucked away in the woods and would take some work to get to. In this park it was out in the open and just a quick ride over the gravel parking lot.
This creek held hours of heart-to-heart conversations on the rocks with feet dangling in the water and notebooks nearby. There were just words and listening and laughter and love. It's here that we solved each other's problems, shed some tears, and swung from the bridge to skim the water on hot days. It's where we'd flee the torture of our older brothers and the noise of our younger cousins, and we'd feel independent. It's here where our friendship really gained a lot of its footing.
The enchantment of this spot still lingers to this day, hitting me all over again when I pause here for a few minutes whenever I'm home. It's the place I long for when I need to "get away from it all" to clear my head -- a quiet and forgotten corner of the world.
~"How hard it is to escape from places. However carefully one goes they hold you -- you leave little bits of yourself fluttering on the fences -- like rags and shreds of your very life." [-Katherine Mansfield]~
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