When I was eight, my family moved from a large, posh house in a ritzy subdivision on River Road to a one hundred and thirty-one acre parcel of undeveloped land in a county called Goochland. When I caught the scent of sunlight, I may as well have been taking my very first breath because it was on that day I came alive. The tiny farmhouse into which we moved was far too small for our family of nine, but my siblings and I hardly noticed. By the time the sun rose each morning, we were out exploring our new territory, collecting treasures, wading through the meandering creek or the shoulder-high grass.
The place to which we returned again and again in our adventures was a small creek that trickled through a thicket of young pine trees. Because a line of much larger trees bordered the area, we named the grove Little Tree Forest, and slowly became familiar with its every tree and every rock. Drunk with the newfound power of ownership, we staked our claim by naming the trees and rocks and any other feature distinct enough to catch our attention, and the names became as necessary and significant to us as those of any lake, street, or city.
It has now been many years since my last visit to Little Tree Forest, but I suddenly feel the urge to go back. As I leave my house one cool Saturday morning I am worried that I will not be able to find it, but my body remembers the way, and I soon recognize the familiar spread of pine trees. I once could have drawn an intricately labeled map of Little Tree Forest, but that was so many years ago. Taking off my shoes and socks, I step into the March-chilled water, and our elaborate names begin to tug on the strings of my memory as if they are kites gently drifting on the wind. I wade over to the base of the Great Mud Wall, suddenly remembering how we used to race each other up the slippery creek bank, collapsing at the top into a giggling pile of innocently naked bodies.
As I jump over the creek and duck under branches more nimbly than I thought I still could, I come across a slab of rock, precariously perched upon three other rocks to form what looks like a miniature stone table. I am amazed that the stones are still there, for it has been well over a decade since we arranged them into an altar for my then eight-year-old brother’s wedding to our next-door neighbor. On the day of the long-planned ceremony, we stood around that altar, my twin brother solemnly reading the marriage ceremony from a tattered old Methodist hymnal we had unearthed in the attic. Rachel had on a stained and torn white nightgown of her mother’s, and Dylan wore one of our father’s old ties, tied in a sloppy double knot at his neck. I am oddly glad that the pictures we took that day were never developed, for the images in my mind will always be of an elegant bride and groom, not of the children in comically large costumes that a photograph would have shown.
Just past the altar, near the very edge of Little Tree Forest, a gnarled tree that hangs out over the creek before turning sharply towards the sky. We called this wise-looking old tree Spirit Tree; he was the deity of Little Tree Forest and we were thus required to respectfully close our eyes each time we passed under him. I am amused, now, at this charming childhood belief. Yet, as I pass beneath the thick trunk to leave Little Tree Forest and head back to my adult world, I find myself closing my eyes for just a second in deference to Spirit Tree.
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