marking the rhythm of my summers. Its scent was familiar: a blend of sap, often rain, and soil that seeped into my skin. The ground was worn smooth around the jutting roots by years of feet( mine among them), tracing paths through grass that once reached my knees.
I like to think that everyone I’ ve ever loved has been here with me. Maybe it’ s duty, maybe it’ s nearness. Yet somehow, I always end up here with new faces, as though leading them to this place reveals a part of me words never could.“ Look,” I’ d say softly,“ this is who I am.” In fourth grade, a group of us would walk home from school. The twins who lived across the park, the boy I had a crush on, and my best friend and his pet rock. We’ d play baseball with pinecones, chase each other around, and when we got tired, we’ d lean against the oak tree. As we sat in a ring around the tree, I would feel the slight warmth radiating from the boy’ s shoulder, ever-so-slightly grazing mine. Our backs pressed to the bark, neither of us moving first. Our hearts pumping in tandem, reverberating through the tree, leaving a little bit of us with it— we never wanted to leave. Getting older proved that the only grounding force in my life would be this park. The twins moved houses, the boy left the country, and I don’ t really know where my best friend went with his rock. Mirroring the tree, the people around me, and my relationships with them,
Yet when I return to the park, the willow still opens for me, and the oak still stands. The swing sways gently, even when no one is there, as if moved by memory itself. I graze my fingers along the taut rope— newer, untouched by rain— and the wooden plank beneath looks freshly sanded. It’ s become clear that not everything, or everyone, stays( but parts of them do). The people who once filled this park with life have drifted elsewhere, their absence indicated only by the resounding footprints covered by leaves, their pulsing heartbeats trapped in trees, and the always sanded swing. I’ ve grown to understand that letting go is not the same as losing. The roots remain, buried deep beneath the soil of every version of myself that once ran, laughed, and loved here. At the northeast corner of Devonshire park, there is a staircase. It’ s elevated and made of stone. As it wraps around a tree or two, the stone disappears and I find my foot sinking into luscious green— where it will always return to.
twist snap float and fall.
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