of streams and trees

As a child, I tagged along to hundreds of my older brothers ball games. There was usally a playground close to the playing fielding. However, I soon exhausted my interest in "wee-ahs"--my childhood name for swings and the man-made plastic and metal (or wood) structures of the playgrounds.

They came to bore me.

My boredom pushed me to look beyond the neat safe worlds of playgrounds and ball parks. What caught my eye... was the edge of the mysterious untamed woods. Hense forth, with the innocent wondering of a young girl I wandered into the secrets of the forest... and fell in love with its wild and beautiful magic.

There was something about the crunch of leaves and dead branches under my feet, the squishy soft mud that made up the edges of the steep and gradual banks near to the water's cool trickle, the quiet caress of the gentle breeze that wove through  the variety of young and old trees and caused my hair to sway around my face in the same way that the branches of willow trees around their trunk which caused the storyteller in me to start whispering fantasic tales. The stories compelled me and I played to the stories in my head. I leaped and bounded across the stream. I allowed the mud and dirt soil my shoes and clothes, carefree. When I fell, I didnt cry, I just got up and continued to play.  My feet danced me through trees and brush, across slopes and down to the stream bed. I was fearless and free.

I remember how happy I was in the woods and by the stream. I remember the joy that caused me to smile and laugh freely. I remember the freedom I felt. I remember the love I felt as I danced in the wooded streams.

But....

Tears slip from my eyes as I remember the day the panicing voice of my father yelling my name shattered through my magic world. Listening to his illogical fears, he banished me from the secret world of the forest and streams. I wasnt allowed to go to my favorite place in the world because my father was afraid that someone or something would take me or harm me.

I was forced to retreat to play in my room with toys instead of the woods and streams behind our house. Or, at ball games playing the mundane games that other kids lead on the playground. My heart longed to be back in the woods with my stories and joy and freedom.. but the fear of my father's fear kept my feet from following my heart's desire.

I still made up stories when I played but they began to take on a theme: escape. In my room with my toys. In my dreams when I slept. In the stories I played with my friends. It was always the same idea: I had to escape from bad people. I was alway running from someone.

I look back on this theme and wonder retorically: Who was I feeling the need to escape from? Who are the "bad people"?

Occasionally, I have gone back to the stream behind the house but it's not the same there is a sadness to the forest and an edge of fear. I've tried to play like I once did but it's just not the same.