Summer Enters The Trail, A sense of Purpose Leaves It

 When I was a small child and well into my double digit years, I imagined that I rode a Mustang. These were the years before pocket computers and automobiles with screens. With five of us kids in the car, our choices were limited to reading, playing Mad Libs and fighting.  Being a military family often away from home, we spent our summers in the car and so I spent my days riding my bareback Bay. I would glance at myself  through the car window, my hands filled with mane with my weight much too far over his withers. The sun and the wind in my face, I raced our car and was well known far and wide for winning.  But during the night as I was falling asleep, I was an eagle coasting on the airstream, first high above the earth seeing all that there was to see, and then flying through neighborhoods and houses that we had left behind. I often found myself gliding into and then out of Mrs. Munn's or McCallum's classroom only to find myself back at home with my family in the morning.

My mother thought of me a bit of an oddity in a family of three brothers and a sister who would often beat them at their own games. My grandmother gifted me a Mrs. Beasley doll, I had a carpet sweeper that I was particularly fond of and mom made sure that I had dresses with patent leather shoes for special occasions like Sundays. The truth is, that when I was five, I married Frankie many times behind the bushes out front; but Patty and I were the best of friends because he had a swing set in his backyard that was just like the one at the playground. As Patty's friend, I could fly so high that I caused the Earth to tilt just enough for my feet to rise above my head.  

I used walk my imaginary German Shepard, Sparky on the end of an imaginary leash. There I was walking down the sidewalk with outstretched arm (Sparky was a puller), on my way to Gracie's house not caring a lick of my family's dignity. Of course, as I got older I too became aware of how this might have looked and so I held my arm close to my side with my wrist slightly flexed. Sparky was older by then and of course much better behaved on a leash.  

These tender memories flooded my consciousness like the golden light of a late summer's day as Wayne and I exited the forest on Basin Rd. Being the last day before students returned to school, I had entered the trail both resenting the loss of freedom that comes with summer's end and feeling myself pulled towards intention again. 

There in the parking lot was a car whose doors slid open springing forth two dogs that seemingly filled all of the space between the car and the forest as they tumbled over one another. A woman's voice preceded her to the other side of the car, she carried with her slightly too much purpose for the scene and so I caught myself hesitating to see what was next. Three young children with long straight hair wearing summer dresses and sandals gracefully emerged from the back seat. They had in their arms  front packs, back packs and dolls. The children caused me to wonder if they were truly going for a hike in the woods or perhaps if they were actually entering a magical forest straight from section 398.2 in the school library.  As they helped each other secure their dolls into their packs, it occurred to me that summer had entered the trail, but a sense of home had left it. 

I wish that I could have seen their muddied knees, tangled hair and panting dogs as they left the forest; but then that is their story to tell. -Norma Manning