My Newbie is Showing...Part 3

BC: Secret Place

Prompt: What would it be like to have a secret place, imaginary or real, where you’d like to go to escape from the grind of everyday life? Can you describe the landscape of such a place for you?

It the days of my youth, I had such a place. It was by my grandmother's lake house. She lived on a real country road where the gravel attempted to stay on the path, but usually was pushed to the side due to heavy traffic. The county would come through every month to either push the gravel to the center again or to move the snow to the ditch. The actual lane to my grandmother's lake house was easy to find. There were two narrow parallel paths divided by short grass in the middle that grew no higher than the bottom of the vehicles and taller grass on either side for the critters and vermin to hide.

The property line along the lake was half wooded and half open for some pretty decent fishing. My favorite secret place to disappear to was along the wooded side. No one bothered to follow me and no one bothered to ask where I disappeared to, save one. I took my brother there one time and said "This is perfect, no trees, no rocks ..." He finished with "No fish." That was it. I knew no one would ever want to go down there again.

I took my tablet and pen and walked along a narrow foot path along a rocky shoreline until the path became overgrown with grass. I imagine the foot and animal traffic quit there because the rocks had turned into a shallow sand and grass beach. There was one tree on the edge of the beach expanse that had been bent by wind and weather. I could climb into the crook of this tree and sit cross-legged quite easily. It was shadowed enough so that no one would see me unless they were looking, but I could see the lake traffic (which was minimal at that location), the traffic from the county access road, and the resort across the bay.

I would write mainly bad poetry back then....mainly brought about by the typical teenage angst that everyone went through, but at the time I thought I was the only one in the world who experienced them. I did not realize how all encompassing and selfish the teenage mindset was when I was in it.

I still go to this place in my memories, no longer physically, when I need to escape reality for a beat or two.