When I was a kid, my parents owned sixty acres of land in rural, upstate New York. We had a house, a barn, a shop, a chicken coop, myriad gardens, a pond, a forest, and a field. This setting offered much in the way of fuel for creative imaginations.
In the late spring, there was a patch of grass in the woods that was greener and lusher than all the other grasses around it, surrounded by a grove of beech trees. I used to wander up, lie down in the grass with my arms crossed over my chest, and imagine I was asleep, waiting for a prince to come and rescue me—very Anne of Green Gables-esque.
Photograph by Evan Sieling, (c) 2008
On the hill behind the house, my brother built a castle, complete with rock walls, two towers, and a half dozen garden beds. He even built a non-electric pump and a series of plastic piping to run water from the spring at the bottom of the hill into the garden, so he could water the plants and even have a couple fountains.
If this sounds magical to you, it was, except for the part where he used his younger siblings as free labor to carry rocks, rake away old leaves and pine needles, and weed the gardens. When I wasn’t participating in sibling-induced chores, I instead would lean against a rock wall, imagining a fog settling down around me as a wizard appeared from within the evergreens to tell me I had powers never-before-seen by anyone in this world. Or that I was trapped in the tower and had to save myself or die trying.
A babbling brook cut the property in half, and in the spring when the snow melted, all the water from the neighboring farmers’ fields rushed down, creating a tumultuous, roaring river that overflowed its banks in a swirling rush of foamy white. And on hot summer days, it trickled clean and clear, and we would dip our feet in to wash off the mud and help cool ourselves down.
A forest surrounded the rest of the property, with trails that meandered past the vegetable gardens, through the overgrown apple orchard, down by the only butternut tree, around the edges of the apiary, and back up to the top of the embankment that overlooked the deep, rocky gorge, which was on the neighbor’s property. In the spring, the swamp just past the birch tree and the lilacs would be alive with the bright yellows of marsh marigolds—the perfect hiding place for gnomes and hobgoblins. And the giants who lived just past the butternuts would often leave massive footprints in the mud.
Everything you could imagine existed in my sixty-acre world. Wizards and ghosts, princesses and talking owls, fantasy and romance and robots. I had imaginary friends galore, and named every fallen log and shallow hollow dug into a heap of last year’s dead leaves. I knew the trees by name, ate the wild berries and plants at my leisure, and noted every new mushroom or patch of moss that grew.
Sometimes we would sneak onto the neighbor’s property to listen to the frogs sing or wade in their larger creek. We would stage battles, shooting water guns at each other from the top of the embankment overlooking the spring. Or challenge each other to see who could wade out into the deepest mud of the swamp. We’d go swimming in the pond or stomping through the creek, and pull leeches off our legs after. We never wore shoes.
But the field was where I spent most of my time. In late summer, tall verdant grasses waved in the breeze, with red, yellow, and white flowers flashing their bright colors amid the green. In the early spring, before the snow had fully melted, steam would rise up from patches of ice, creating a low-level mist across the short, brown grass, and any figure seen in the distance looked like nothing more than a hazy, mystical silhouette. In the winter, the snowy landscape stretched out in a blinding white sheet as far as the eye could see, the sharp edges of distant tree branches grasping at the gray, overcast sky. And in fall, great round bales of hay lay scattered across the now short, brown grass, and the vibrant rusty reds and yellows of autumn created a vibrant border along the edges of the field.
Here, I could be anything. An abandoned farmer’s maid lost on the prairie. A world-weary traveler seeking rest. A mysterious figure in the fog, searching for the source of all magic. A lonely widow, longing for her lost love. An escaped damsel desperate for a way back home.
The field was the canvas and my imagination the paintbrush. All I had to do was fill it with stories.
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I always jumped the three steps leading down from the back porch of the house. Then I would cross the driveway, which bridged the babbling brook. I would ramble past the herb gardens and across the road bisecting the property. Then stroll past the lower vegetable on the north side of the barn, and duck under the low-hanging branches of the walnut tree. Beyond the hedge, the field would stretch out for miles, and by the time I arrived, my parents and brothers and real life would be far behind me.
With every step, my mind wandered too. Of course I thought about normal kid and teenage stuff—school and boys and band and how mad I was at my little brother for constantly being noisy—but eventually, my mind would move onto stories. Any story was fair game, but often I focused on the stories from the books I’d taken from the library, or a scene from something I had to read for school.
But when those stories faded, then came the feelings. Scenes and moments and fables built based on me.
If I felt sad, I was lost and alone in the wilderness, the great emptiness of the field feeding the narrative I wove. If I was in love, I imagined him running toward me across the lush landscape, to wrap me in his arms and tell me he loved me. If I was angry, I cried furious tears and imagined that soil beneath my feet roiled and burned with my power. If I felt curiosity, I wondered about what grew around me, or if aliens would ever pick our field to land their ships, or if ghosts were really real.
All around me stories rose and fell, but none lasted much longer than the time I spent wandering.
When I returned home and walked up the three steps, life returned—my family, dinner, homework, chores, school, the stories left far behind me, now only faint traces in my memory.
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It’s been many years since I wandered that field. I’ve wandered in other ways, of course. I’ve lived in five different states. I’ve climbed mountains and hiked trails. Visited to other countries.
I’ve explored many ideas, perspectives, philosophies.
I’ve started keeping track of the stories. Writing them down.
Wandering like that though, now happens rarely. Life is too heavy, and the world too crowded and full.
But wandering is still at the core of who I am. Even when I’m stuck in the middle of a busy city sidewalk, or in a meeting surrounded by people, or too tired to stroll down to the public trail that winds through farmer fields and along train tracks and through forests, I can close my eyes and imagine that I stand in the middle of my field surrounded by mist, or with the hot sun burning in the blue sky overhead, or amid tiny white flowers pushing their faces through the dense summer grasses; I can smell the crisp scent of honeysuckle on the air, hear the mourning doves cooing in the early morning light, feel the chill of the brisk breeze blowing a thunderstorm in from the south—and all around me, I can grow whatever stories I want.
