The Meadow

Maybe, you had a special place growing up where you would go and pretend to be anyone and anywhere you wanted to be. As a child, the border between this world and the world of "make believe" was a tiny, wire fence just behind my grandparent's home. Beyond this fence, my friends and I entered a world of anything we could dream of. Of all the places we played, it was this special place just beyond the city limits that we enjoyed the most. Here, a tiny creek wiggled through a hillside meadow. To the North, stood two weathered walls that once supported a stone bridge over the creek and guarded a stand of deep woods. Every time we went to the meadow, a new adventure would begin. One day, we might decide to have a fishing contest, sailing the creek with our boats made of foam and plywood. Another day, we might be cowboys defending the stone walls against attack. Yet, another day, we might be explorers, trying to discover buried treasure, somewhere in the deep woods.

Summer was the best time of the year to play in the meadow because we could play there until after the sun went down. As the sunset covered the meadow, it became a place of long shadows creeping out of the deep woods, over the stone walls, and into the meadow. In the twilight and shadows, we would play one, or both, of our favorite games. We could be Army commandos, crawling through the tall weeds on the creek bed to surprise the enemy at the edges of the woods. Or, we could to be a band of bandits, waiting in the woods for unsuspecting travelers. Sometimes, when the moon was full, we would just sit atop of the stone walls, telling ghost stories. Occasionally, we turned to look into woods from time to time, imagining there just might be a ghost listening to us. As usual, just as blackness completely blanketed the woods and the meadow, the back porch light would light up on my grandparent's home, signaling us it was time to come home.

The carefree, adventurous days spent in the meadow behind my grandparent's home are long past and treasured in memory. Still, I have been back a few times to see that the meadow remains much like was, some forty years ago. The creek still gently rolls along in down the middle of the meadow. The deep woods are still thick and dark. Though new trees are mixed with old, the woods still hold the mysterious "calling" they did years ago. Sadly, all that remains of the great stone walls is a few moss-covered stones to show where we shared scary stories. Still, a wonderful thing about imagination is that you can capture colorful and heart-warming images in your mind and keep them there, forever. In times when I need to draw on strength and inspiration, I close my eyes and see this special place, the meadow, just as it was when I played there with my childhood friends. I can see the creek, the woods, even the stone walls as they were years ago. I see the long shadows drawing at twilight, darkness falling upon the meadow, and dream of a happy time once more.

I have to go now. The porch light is on.

Learn more about this author, David Duncan.
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