Into the woods

My father never taught me much. He was always so busy. There was never any time for baseball or movies or...well...anything. I spent most summers wandering aimlessly into the woods with a pencil and a pad of paper. I loved those times so much. I was anything I wanted to be amongst the trees. I was an explorer. I was a writer. I felt confident. I would tie bits of string to the trees to mark my way back home and I would leave small pieces of myself under rocks and rotten logs. Just the thought that someday, another explorer would find this treasure–this treasure of me...I think really, it was because occasionally, after big storms, I would find old baseball cards and glass bottles in a ditch behind my house. Nothing was more exciting than holding the legacy of a stranger with my insignificant, dirty little hands. Wandering back to my house of a busy father, a working mother, and a bully of a sibling, I felt relieved. Someone would remember me and feel the way I felt when I remembered them.

Summer's almost over now. Just the way it was back then. And no matter how much I had accomplished in that tangle of poison ivy and scratchy tree branches, I had no trophies to bring to show-and-tell. I had no stories but I had no friends to share them with anyway. While the other kids laughed and basked in their accomplishments and praises, I would just stare out the window and wait for the next summer to come so I could find someone else's treasure, and bury mine again.