New Territory

Tuesday, December 8, 1:00 p.m. - The first time I had to put gloves on.  The ground isn't too hard, but it has lost that muddy feel.  The stiff grass cracks under my boots.  Once in the woods, Manny is off.  He sprints down the path but quickly pulls up to explore and sniff around.  I look through the trees and realize that everything has opened up.  All of the remaining leaves around are on the ground blending into the dirt and branches across the ground.  I take my usual seat on my log.  Manny sprints back and forth in front of me in the small opening.  He's missed it out here, too.  On each of his turns, he slides through the leaves piled on the ground spraying them in the air like an ice skater stopping and shaving a mist of ice into the air.

I can see more houses in the distance.  The lack of leaves makes this place seem even less secluded than it already was.  Little blankets of snow cover a few logs here and there.  The plant life and weeds are rotten brown.  Their leaves sag towards the ground; they are soft.  I can hear them squishing around in Manny's mouth as he chops at them.  I can't really hear anything else.  I don't hear the chirping of the birds that frequented the woods when it was warmer.  The wind picks up and sends a chill down my spine.

Manny seems to want to go for a walk, or I just make that excuse so we can explore.  I'm not sure how I missed it in the past, but I find another tangent of the trail.  We walk under a leaning tree and head down a sloping path.  At the bottom of the hill, there is a giant tree that has been uprooted.  I'm not exactly sure what they are, but a cage of thin vines and sticks surround the roots of the tree.  They hang like a bird cage and weave to a point at the top forming what looks like an mini golden roof of an ancient church.  On the ground, the hard mud converges onto an area of green grass.  It looks fake, like it doesn't belong in the dull, dead colors of winter.  Just beyond the fake artificial turf is a giant tree, standing by itself in the middle of everything.  Connected to the side of it is a tree stand, i think, for hunting.  But it is so close to the houses.  It's got to be twenty feet high.  I'm terrified of heights, but I decide to make the climb.  Manny circles below watching and ready to catch me if necessary.

At the top of the stand, I can see forever.  I am in the line of sight of the canopy of bare branches.  I wrap my arms around the trunk and lean out to see around the tree.  I imagine jumping from tree to tree.  What it would be like to be a squirrel or a bird and have the freedom to move about from the ground to the sky.  In the distance, I finally hear them.  I can't see where they're at but a flock of birds are working to break the silence.  I slowly climb down the tree stand and head in their direction.

My blood begins to warm along the walk.  We come to a break in the ground.  Rocks and a Mountain Dew bottle cover the bottom of the deep creek.  My friends and I used to walk through the shallow flow of water, which led us to another creek that opened into the community pond.  Manny and I decide to stick stay dry and continue our walk.  We make it to a rusted barbed wire fence that has become a part of the vines before we turn back.  On the way back, Manny urges me to play a little fetch with him.  Stick after stick he shoots after and destroys.  I think he's still a little fuzzy on how the game actually works.  Before we walk towards home, I pause here and there to take some pictures, even though I know I'll be back.