Kellie Lynch – New Haven, CT

They never knew I walked along the old railroad path where the grass was overgrown and the wild life enjoyed the taste of skin in the summer. The path where the late afternoon sun blessed the trees and spilled through the canopy just enough to embrace a traveler. The glow was divine. This path traveled along the Bradford quarries. The quarries, rumor has it, were where satanic rituals were performed by lost teens, lost souls…runaways. The quarries also housed a large crane…rumor has it. You couldn’t see the crane. The neighborhood kids knew where not to jump. Never dive into the quarries, my Mom said, my friend broke his neck and died doing so, she once told me. But we still jumped, although never head first, sometimes 30 feet and sometimes 80 feet. I’m not sure I ever jumped 80 feet, I’m sure I said I did to impress others. To belong.

On this day, I was simply wandering alone. Testing. Will they know I’m gone? Is there really a rocking chair and tricycle on the second floor of that abandoned barn? Did I see a mirror in that building? Is that where SHE lives? At the time, the woods felt so deep and just scary enough to push me home, yet comforting. I knew I belonged to these trees. I kept walking. What was calling me into a space that seemed to generate frightening tales of haunted barns, ghost tracks, sacrificed animals, and quarries deep enough to swallow a crane? I was scared, sure. Perhaps my curiosity was strong enough to override any feeling of fear. Or maybe I actually felt home, in nature, not attached to anyone or anything but part of the fabric of the forest. Or at least it felt like a forest. There weren’t bears or wolves to be aware of, and I could still hear cars traveling on the road. I was safe enough. I wanted to get lost. I wanted to be free.