Somewhere Safe

the problem with death is that you have some hundred years and then they can build buildings on your only bones.
- ani difranco

Tonight, at twilight, I wandered, finally, into the space that used to be the woods behind my parents' house. Yes, the woods symbolized my childhood and so their loss is a bit intense, but I'm pretty well aware that my childhood is long gone, and I've advocated my parents getting out of this place for years, and if they had, I don't think I would have given the loss of access to the woods much thought. But standing in a wood-chip strewn clearing that used to be a wooded thicket was still a bit depressing.

Later, I would remember running along that trail with my sister, always playing her games, or taking my bike in there and seeing how much bodily harm I could cause myself when no one was watching. Later, I would remember jumping off the small cliff and banging my knee, limping home, and I would remember the game where we jumped from island to island in the swamp, and one or both of us would invariably fall in. Later I'd remember passing through the woods by myself, to the trailer park on the other side to visit my friend Andrew, really the only friend outside my sister that I had in my childhood, and I'd remember the time we went skating on the frozen swamp and got so lost that I eventually ended up peeing on myself. Later, at sunset, as I made my way back into the house, I'd think about all those things, but as I stood in the clearing I didn't concern myself with any of that, noting instead that with all the landmarks flattened and removed, there was no way to remember where Phaedra, our first cat, was buried. I don't even remember Phaedra, what she looked like, but I remember visiting her grave in the woods thirty years ago, and for some reason, tonight, accompanied only by fading sun, I felt an inexplicable compulsion to find her remains and bring them somewhere safe.