The Woods were my escape as a child. When I was three, my parents bought a house near the James River in Chesterfield County. Almost immediately, the City of Richmond annexed their property, but it always retained a suburban feel. The small, tri-level house seemed enormous to me as a child, especially after having lived in a small one-story rental.
My favorite part of the new home was our yard. We had a small front and side yard with regular grass, bushes, and a few trees like most of suburbia, but a steep slope into a valley behind our house made that land unsuitable for building, so it was left wild. A large, wooded valley led from our yard past several other houses, all the way down to a pond, a creek, and the James River. As a child, this area seemed like unexplored wilderness. Only a tiny part of the woods belonged to us, but I was welcome to play anywhere in the acre stretch, if I could still see the house.
These woods became my solace. Each day I would explore and play games with neighborhood kids. We built forts, followed the slope down to the creek to catch crawdads and peered under rocks to look for salamanders. An only child, I often explored and played on my own, too. Tommy, my imaginary friend, accompanied me as we conjured a tree house left behind by previous residents into a great sailing ship headed to uncharted lands. When I was ten, my dad and I bought timber, and we constructed a new, safer tree house that lasted until I was an adult and had long moved away.
In the heat of summer, the woods were cooler than our unairconditioned house. I would read and lounge in my tree house, like others use a hammock. When it snowed, I followed animal tracks made by deer, possum, squirrels, or raccoons as they foraged for food. I brought carrots and seeds to supplement their food stores until the snow melted. I loved watching the birds build nests in the spring. If I was lucky, I could watch a mating pair sit on their nest, feed their young, and follow their fledglings around as they learned to fly. In autumn, the woods took on a magical appearance as the leaves turned from green to a kaleidoscope of yellow, orange, red and brown. From my tree house, I could also observe the goings on at my neighbors’ homes or make up stories about fairies, solving mysteries, or taking a rocket to the moon.
When my parents quarreled, or I felt lonely, the natural world gave me a place to escape to reclaim a sense of peace and tranquility. There was always something to see, to hear or to smell among the trees that helped me to focus on the present moment. The woods gave me sanctuary that I found nowhere else. We were rarely a church-going family in my early childhood, but I found God when I watched the dappled sunlight filter through the leaves of the oaks, poplars, and beeches.
Brooke Davis is a high school librarian and mindfulness coach. She is a wife and mother to sons and two cats. In her spare time, Brooke likes to write, practice yoga, garden and travel. Her blog is Mindful-musings.org.