My childhood smelled like warm grass, the freshly tilled soil of a garden, the honeysuckle that grew all along the fence across the street from the house that would greet your nose when the wind caught it just right. It smelled like rain and mud. It smelled like intrusive cool breezes that signaled that summer would be ending soon. It sounded like a dozen birds chirping right around you as the dew cooked off the grass. It sounded like the crackles of bacon in a frying pan and “Mandiiiiiii, diiiiinnnneeeerrr!”. It sounded like old trucks starting and the heavy clang of a car door - back when they were still heavy. It felt like wind blowing wild hair across my face and sweat on my forehead. It felt like knees on the cool grass and rocks pricking the bottoms of bare feet. It felt like joy and curiosity.
There was only a thin electric fence separating my back yard from a u-shaped cow pasture that hooked through the space between my house and my grandparent’s house and around to the back of their house where the small fishing pond was located. Beyond the pond, the hills stretched upward and a dense forest blanketed either side of a stream that fed the pond. I experienced more freedom in my interactions with this world than I have at any other time in my life. This is the freedom that is only available during childhood, before life laid any rules or expectations on my shoulders.
To the right, I saw a sprawling field of strawberries that would bustle with u-pickers a few months out of the year and make the air smell better than candy. (This same field was later replaced with peach trees and is now the acreage that holds my adult home.) To the left was a country store owned by my grandparents, which was the hub of activity for our little piece of heaven. I was always a minute’s walk away from my grandparents…and from snacks that I never bothered to get approved by my parents. This, and my affinity for frozen pizzas and Doritos dipped in sour cream, was no doubt why I had many years of chunkiness and why, to this day, I fight a daily battle between what I want and what I know is better for me. (What I want: ice cream, daily. What I need: nutrition. What I want: snacks, always. What I need: exercise and water. You get the point.)
I had an open ticket to explore the world around me as long as the sun was up. Its setting was my cue to head back toward home, hair a mess and dirt crusted under my nails and on my knees. I would never dream of allowing my own children to roam freely through the streets, the woods, and into random homes around the neighborhood with no firm knowledge of exactly where they might be and no way to locate them other than to cup my hands around my mouth and hope that my parental tone carried to their ears. Of course, it is said that we grew up in very different worlds, but I’ll never know how many times I may have narrowly skirted danger or death in the course of my daily unsupervised adventures.
Even the setting sun didn’t signal an end to our adventures. Nights brought gathering out in front of the store listening to the farmers and old men talk about the weather and the crops and other people’s business. We would run around in the falling darkness and sneak up on lightning bugs so we could fill a jar to save their light or pinch them off to decorate our skin. Paper bags became habitats that we crafted to hold whatever creatures we could take captive. Our imaginations ran wild as we used words and sticks and the tools of the world around us to paint the pictures of things we could only see in our minds - lavish homes, makeshift stores, obstacle courses, forts to protect us from invaders. These worlds would shape our play for as long as we kept them interesting and changing. When one ran its course, the next would begin.
My playmates were those who could break free and join in. Most often, it was all boys. Thinking back, I can’t recall if that was by choice or just because that’s who happened to be around me. I can’t, however, remember it being of any importance to me. (Until it was, but more on that later.)
Much like I can’t recall the last time that my youngest child took my hand to cross a street, I don’t know when the last day was that I played as a child plays. I can’t remember the last time I waited for the sun to chase me indoors. Nearly every day, I walk the same roads that I played on, my feet that sort of happy tired that comes from the appreciation of moving because I wanted to and because I got to. Today, as I sit on my back porch in the middle of the changed yet unchanged landscape of my childhood, I know that who I am is firmly resting on the foundation of the girl with the wild hair and dirty knees. As an adult, my breath catches when I see beautiful colors and I feel the sounds of the outdoors all the way to my toes. I have an unquenchable thirst for exploring the world and the notion that if I am curious enough I can figure out how anything works. I can imagine and dream far beyond my reality. I have the gift of stillness in my body that developed from a life that felt unforced for many precious years.