The Mountain

Well, wow! Thanks everyone so much for visiting my first blog! The number of visits to the page was so big, I think I’m suffering a little stage fright in writing this next piece. :-) But, I’ll do my best. The good news is that in starting the blog and writing that first piece, I’m already feeling a lot less angst overall. Mostly. Writing therapy is wonderful.

In my current quest for sanity (simplicity), and wondering how in the world I got to this particular spot in life, a certain place keeps popping up in my mind.  I’ve been dying to revisit this place, and maybe you’d be up for joining along. I’m quite sure this is where the whole science path began. Until I was 14 years old, my family and I stayed in a cabin on land in Pennsylvania owned by my dad’s parents and aunt. We stayed there almost all weekends through the spring, summer and fall. The cabin itself was built by hand by my great-grandfather and his friend. A plaque on the chimney has the year 1940 scratched into it. It was a rustic and small two-story cabin with stone walls, a one-room downstairs and an open loft upstairs. There was a screened-in porch that we used in the summer days and evenings. Of course, it was cozy and beautiful to us, the feeling of family ever-present in the place, every corner hand-made. We called it the Little Camp. 

But, it’s more than just the Little Camp I wanted to visit. We called the whole place, land, cabin and all, The Mountain. To me, it was: the big mowed yard, surrounded by a modest stone wall, and past that, acres and acres of trees. Quiet. The occasional deer and bear wandering through the yard. Red eft salamanders making their brilliant appearances near the creek after a rainstorm. Meadows of tall grass, huge old maple trees standing tall as the years passed, a small pond that was only filled with water until mid-summer. We had a view from the big field on our hillside, below the Little Camp, onto the next hill, the whole thing covered with trees. There were no buildings in sight but ours, not a cottage or a power line. As a small kiddo, I’d get up early to gather (mostly just eat) wild strawberries in the field, munch from apple trees that gave delicious Spy and Golden Delicious in the fall. Most important: the quiet. All weekend, to only hear the breathing of the earth: the wind through the trees, rushing through branches choked with leaves in the summer, and a brittle sound as the leaves would change color and fall. A bright whistle once the leaves were gone. The call of a crow. The screen door slamming periodically. These sounds, always a gentle backdrop: understated peace.

Everything was so quiet and close that the super-occasional car passing by on the dirt road was an attention-grabbing event. For me as a kid, events on the mountain were defined in much smaller spaces than they are in life these days. The discovery of a path made by ants in the grass, the magic of witnessing my first ice storm, each branch and blade of grass covered in its own glass sheath. All of the changing seasons, apple blossoms slowly turning into apples. Tadpoles hatching from their eggs, slowing becoming frogs. I’d keep track of all these things, week to week, making my visits to be sure and witness all that was going on. There’s a lot of magic in watching and listening to the earth just do her thing. And that’s the beginning, for me. In all of these events is another whole set of fun blog posts, I’m sure. :-)

Oh, and happy Valentine's Day! Eat some chocolate!!