Where I walked wasn’t unexplored ground. There was a paved path, and it didn’t materialize from thin air. I knew better.
Somewhere a committee passed a motion, they conducted an environmental impact study, employed an engineer, and a landscaper who proposed ideas, and they submitted drawings for final approval. Weeks, months or years ensued before work began. The surveying team finally appeared to translate the approved plans into the landscape. Bulldozers and excavators arrived to ensure accessibility while maintaining a natural feel.
As I wandered, I listened to the bird’s chirping and a squirrel’s chatter. I alone, tread this forgotten byway. Autumn leaves fell, obscuring the route. In places, soil washed over the pavement and elsewhere tree roots buckled and cracked the tarmac. Three leaf sets of poison ivy turned yellow-gold and burgundy. The toxic plant, seeking sun, thrived in sunlit patches. I kept my distance, not wanting to itch and scratch and cover myself in soothing lotion.
It would have been an idyllic walk, if not for the constant buzz of traffic. The nearby busy street hummed, and tires clacked when they hit the road’s expansion cracks. Through the thinning foliage, bright flashes of speeding cars seeped into this simple setting. Still, it was more than this city-bound country girl could have hoped to find so close to her new home.
I missed the real outdoors, the silence and true solitude I had taken for granted in my youth. This slice of cultured homage was the best I could expect, but I yearned for more. Life never worked that way. I visited often through the seasons until the day the dozers returned. The easement lost, a wider road had won, and I longed for the trail I once endured.
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Keep on writing.
Jo Hawk The Writer