I went for a walk in town today to pick a few things up. I much prefer being out in the woods, but there were a few things I had to get, so it was unavoidable. It was early in the morning before the heat of the day, and I parked my car several blocks away, thinking maybe I’d get a quiet walk in before the hustle and bustle of the day began. As I walked, thinking and planning, I found myself going down some side streets I hadn’t been down in a very long time. I wasn’t sure why I veered off the main road; I only knew my feet went in a different direction than the store I needed to visit.
I found myself on a back side street that doesn’t get much
traffic. Something about it seemed
familiar as I walked, but I was lost in my thoughts thinking about what I needed
to get done today. I stopped dead in my
tracks, though, when I saw the old house.
There it was, just as I remembered it all those years ago. This must have been why I veered off the main
road in the first place, but I didn’t realize it until I was there. I hung back across the street by the old oak
tree and just looked at the house.
 |
| Be careful when you lean against an old oak. |
About a quarter of a century earlier I had been in that
house. I had an old friend who lived
there. She invited me over for dinner
one day, and there was another friend there as well, so it was a threesome. We had such a good time spent in conversation
and much giggling! My friend was making
little catnip toys for Christmas for all of her friends who had cats. They were basically a tiny square of fabric
sewn into a pillow shape and stuffed tightly with catnip. All three of us were hand sewing the little
pillows and chatting and laughing. We ordered
a vegetarian pizza with artichokes on it because one of the gals was a
vegetarian. I was worried I wouldn’t
like a pizza without pepperoni, but it was very good! I’m sure the company helped.
We laughed and talked and worked and ate for a long time,
discussing all the complexities of the day, sharing gossip, and plotting the
revolution. It was a magical evening of
fun and friendship, and as it got dark outside, my friend turned on little
strings of lights that were wound all around the windows. I went to one of the windows to look outside,
and I was surrounded by twinkling little lights everywhere that just seemed to
make the night even more fun. It felt
like we were all in an enchanted kingdom, and I had a blissful evening.
Maybe we were in
an enchanted kingdom back then. Today I
stood across the street, leaning against the old oak and thinking about that
night of friendship and frivolity. I
tried to picture my younger self inside the house, walking to one of the
windows and looking out and seeing my older self leaning against the oak,
peering at the house. What would my
younger self had thought? I tried so
hard to picture it, maybe trying to make it come true. Could the younger me have ever had a clue
what a quarter of a century can do to a person?
Probably not. What direction
might she have taken had she seen the face of her older self?
I watched the house for a while, thinking about the people
from the past. One of the women there
that night all those years ago is already dead.
The other lives very, very far away on the other side of the earth. And me?
I’m still here, leaning against old oak trees, looking for lost dreams, and
thinking about ghosts.
