Journey to My Hiding Place

My mother was in no mood to have me hanging about the house doing little girl things, so it was out the backdoor for me that morning. All of my friends were elsewhere – on vacations, out on errands with their moms – all the typical things that robbed me of company. I had to make do with my own.

So, it was off to my hiding place, which was and wasn’t a hiding place at all. It had been built as a fort, at least for whatever our play of the day was, by covering a depression in the woods with pine branches. I held main claim to it and could use it at will as a private retreat since it was closest to my house, which bordered a wondrous woodland that was an abandoned tree nursery and now playground for the young.

I left the yard through the small, woodsy area my father tended with such care, and past the swing set that sat in a clearing among its trees. There was just enough “swing” room to allow soaring to great heights, perhaps even around and over the top if we tried hard enough, though we never did. It squeaked and squealed as we swung on the wooden seats; the frame and hooks were iron, and there was no amount of oiling that would cure it. We couldn’t afford the newer models coming out, but that was fine. Its comments as we swung back and forth kept us company, especially when I was swinging alone. That was not the kind of company I believed I wanted that day, however. If I couldn’t have human company, I only wanted my own, hidden away where I could feel a bit sorry for myself.

I began the journey into the woods. To get there, I needed to take a narrow path through a field of tall grasses. Part way along, a garden spider had spun a web across the entire path opening, which both raised fear and fascination with the beauty of the spider and the web, and also posed a problem: Do I disturb it or not? The spider looked so large and beautiful, with its dark blackness and brilliant yellow stripes. I knew it was harmless – or at least I believed it to be. It was just hanging out waiting for food. The web was finely wrought and must have taken time to spin, but I knew it could be replaced easily if destroyed by my pushiness. I would, however, need to tell my mother - once I cooled off – and my friends about its existence. Would the spider remain long enough to be appreciated by others, or would someone or something come along to destroy it? Would the spider look for better feeding grounds?

I retraced my steps along the path until I came to another branch, one that led to a poplar grove. I could get to my hiding place almost as easily through it, and it would lead me under sounds of the round leaves of the poplars, tap, tap, tapping against each other in a way I can only describe as clicking. It was not annoying clicking; it was quite peaceful. Also, since the area had once been a tree nursery, all the trees stood in straight rows with easily navigable paths between them. It was very light, both due to the openness of the paths and the movement of the tree leaves that filtered the sun. I was actually happy that I had been “forced” to take this route.

I followed a row into the grove of white pines, evergreens so typical of the region in which I lived. There were the same straight rows, which once had been tended and cleared regularly. Now they were left to tend themselves. There were branches over which to step, even fallen trees blocking the way, but I was young and lithe, able to navigate through, around, and over whatever might block my progress.

Then it appeared: the hiding place, refuge of soft pine branches arranged so carefully to look like a happenstance pile of debris, but which, in fact covered the depression we had discovered one day in this world of once smoothly-tended ground. How many times had I slipped through the secret opening – several branches easily pulled apart and then replaced with care above one’s head? I had lost count, only remembering the feel of the pine needles beneath me, their pungent, yet refreshing scent, and the quiet of the nook that took me out of an everyday world of noise and bustle. I could hear only bird chirps and songs, pleasant, welcome neighbors as I whiled away the minutes spent in hiding.

This time there was something wrong with the look of it, something about the arrangement of branches above the nook. Instead of heaping up, they squelched down. Feet had obviously trampled them, perhaps by others running through the pines. Sadly, though, I believed it had been done by others who wished to destroy what they took, correctly, to be a fort built by possible enemy children. I don’t believe the squirrels, pheasants, and chipmunks could have done such damage, and I didn’t believe that there were animals large enough in these quiet woods to have charged in as they ran from some other predator. The place felt too safe to imagine that possibility. No, I think it was the marauding gang that did the damage, and I could not face the repair work needed to rebuild what had been lost, so I stood in young-girl despair, my naiveté forever reduced by this bit of needless destruction.

Did I know then what I know now? The secretly-constructed hideaway was only part of a larger hiding place. In fact, the entire woodland was my retreat, my private place on a day when I felt shrugged off by my mother, and friendless by the absence of those on whose doors I could normally knock. This is not what filled my mind as I walked back toward my house. Instead, it was filled with a mixture of sadness and anger, neither expressed, however. The surroundings were too peaceful to allow for tears or thrashing of branches.

I returned to my father’s woodland creation, and to the swing set. I sat on a swing and started lifting myself higher and higher, the squeaking of the metal hooks on metal frame becoming my only companions in a hiding place of height and the freedom of flight.