Devotion

When I was eight years old, there were moss green treetops and the hidden secrets of well-worn paths. There were dog walking trails and people walking trails, and there were trails that weren't trails at all. I'd cram my scrawny child body between thorns and spiderwebs for the chance to find something new. The fruits of my labor were always massive— a huggable tree, a hidden grove, a swamp where teenage boys used to play. I told them to be quiet and they offered to date me, teasing in a way that made me tell them to be quiet again while I balanced on soggy logs and tried not to fall into murky water.

When I was ten, I returned to the swamp. I'd been there plenty of times in the interim to eat lily of the valley leaves, but this was my first time bringing a friend to my inner sanctum of upturned roots. We put our hands to the bark of a tree with a divot in it and spoke. The divot was a portal, and we were in a magical land. We used our wands to cast spells. At the end of the day, we threw our sticks back into the water.

I haven't been back to that swamp in six years, but I can still remember the little frogs and the path of the logs and the way it was almost a pond later on. The chirping of birds overhead and the darkness that came from the thick foliage above. 

If I think about it for long enough, my blanket begins to feel like moss. The air beneath it becomes cooler.