A path out of the woods

As children, my siblings and I relished the freedom and joy of ‘the woods’ at my aunts’ house (and my father’s childhood home) out on Mast Road in Goffstown, New Hampshire. Before it became a Bank of America ATM, a Brewing Company, and a public park with rails to trails access, it was simply ‘the aunts’ house’, and the wonderland beyond the homestead, the barns, and the field, was ‘the woods’.

It was there in the pulpit of the small brook that ran through the property that my father and his siblings learned to swim. In the 1920s and 30s, the hill leading down into the woods was a place for them to ski on two flat wooden boards. As children in the 60s and 70s, the trail took us along familiar stone walls, past trees we came to see as friends, roots, pinecones, and leaves crushed beneath our feet. For us, my siblings and I, the woods was a place for exploration, walks with our aunts, scavenger hunts for Lady Slippers and water bugs, and an escape into a time and place far from our everyday lives. Following the trails far enough would bring us to Glen lake and eventually back towards the city, but we seldom if ever ventured so far. For me, traveling beyond the brook was a big adventure.

Today, amongst old photos, I came across a photo of fall foliage and a trail leading up a hill. Immediately, the woods came back to me. I haven’t been there for more than 25 years. The trail itself no doubt gone, but the path is part of memory. My memory. The trails, like veins on my hands, are imprinted. This was not even the common trail we took, but the back side of the property where we would come up on the far side of the field on those days when we ventured farthest.

Coming out the back side of the woods meant we had a broader view of the property. We came upon it rather than into it. Entering from there, I felt more a stranger to the land than when we entered from the main trailhead. But, today, seeing that photo, I felt as though my childhood lay just up the hill, through the forsythia bushes hidden from view, just steps away from my parents, my aunts, my brothers and sister from 60 years ago. If only I could enter the photo, walk the path, cross the field and pass the summer houses, the hen house and the barn to reach my aunts’ kitchen with the gleaming wooden walls, the tin ceiling tiles, the familiar banter of the adults, the promise of molasses cookies, and the warmth of the love that resided there.