books

I was running my hand across an old, dusty, leathery-pleathery hardcover of an old friendly book the other day. The smell of the stacks brought back a flood of memories in less than a second.

These memories make me wonder if the valley, Little Valley, my family lives in, if it misses children coming to visit. For at least 20 years, every summer, it could count on 3-4 children running around in the pastures, hiking through the forest and trudging up and down the creek that runs through the middle. Pulling out strands of it's long grass and trying to make whistling noises, shredding seeds off the long rye, moving sticks from one end to the other, counting "baby salmons" in the shallow areas of the crick.

I remember me, Yvette and Lynnae spent hours running from one side of the culvert bridge to the other watching our "Pooh Sticks" come to the other side. Half the game was the fun of finding newer, better sticks to send off under the bridge.

We made at least twenty treasure maps one summer, inspired by a book series we read where the heroine goes off to find treasure. Another summer we solved mystery after mystery like Nancy Drew. Other times we would hike around the woods looking for "clues" and making animal friends (like white kittens) and imaginary handsome boyfriends, hoping a real one would come along like the companions Mandie had in The Carolinas. For a month we all wanted a long braid to flip over our shoulder like the girl in the Northwoods series (I think that was the name).

One time we tried to convert the back40 tractor and parts shed into a boxcar, so we could live in it like the Boxcar Children. Damming off a creek was much harder in real life, the book made it sound easier. I had a little plastic cup that was "my own", God knows what else we stole from the Farm kitchen that is probably still missing. I remember at least three ceramic jars we swiped to hold all our "food and supplies" (like the blueberries we picked and some juice boxes) we needed to survive on our own. We were orphans, you know, living in a Boxcar.

Poor, poor orphans. Left at The Farm with Gramma for three whole months. We wouldn't even pretend to be sorry to leave smelly, polluted, congested, crowded South Seattle for a ferry ride to The Farm. The time passed quickly, and in a flash, the leaves were falling, the canning was done and we were back playing hopscotch in the street while our friend's older siblings smoked and talked about the other gang impeding on their turf. We would take solace in the next book series, maybe one about gymnast girls who had cool adventures, or a Sci-Fi series about the post-nuclear war future. In any even, we would go from car to inside, never spending more than a minute outdoors, and fight for space in the small two bedroom. The rain and fog seemed unending. The sunshine, sweet smelling pastures, corn on the cob, animals, big porch and 4-bedroom farmhouse seemed so far away. The dreary rain, unending buildings and pavement seemed much more real.

Is it a lonely valley? Was it lonely in the decade-long gap between my father running there in every summer of his youth until I came for my summers? Will it still be there when my children need the perfect canvas to paint what is in their imaginations?