When I was 8, I lied under the leaves like a cat’s discarded dead rat.  That level of gritty commitment made me an early pick as teams formed for our neighborhood game of flashlight tag.

Somewhere deep inside of me, my determination and gross disconnect of proper hygiene fueled my decision to burrow down under the dirt and leaves by my Mom’s barberry bushes. I held my breath as one seeker after another passed by me.  Eventually, I heard the call from a teammate “Diane, we won! They gave up, come on out!”  Hiding became less fun as I loved the chase but I was determined to redeem my value on the team.

I was night blind and ran into trees with scary regularity. The sound of the thump or my groan always made me an easy tag-out.  I once ran full speed into my Dad’s grill, toppling the dusty charcoal bricks and ending up with red marks along my stomach to match the grill plate I landed on.  My plights were dismissed as comically bad luck or poor skill.  When I told one of the older boys, Bobby Wallace, I couldn’t see, he reminded me:  ‘It’s nighttime Diane, ya know, dark.  No one can see.  That’s why it’s called flashlight tag.”   

For a young kid with time on her hands, dirt in her hair, and angst in her heart, the bounty of 42 Barnesdale road was the easy adventure right outside the door.  Touch football, kickball, and whiffle ball were played in the street out front. Behind my house was a forest with clearings for Brown Elementary and Kennedy Junior High.  On weekends and summer days, we could pack a lunch and head off to our secret paths and private forts.  

Rain, snow, and cold were never deterrents to go out and play but mere details we used to pick out clothes.  There were trees to climb, fences to jump, roofs to secretly sit atop and plan world dominance.  What is it about sitting at a higher position that immediately imbues a sense of power and ability?  The landscape offered us natural risks and taught us limits. The small frozen pond behind Brown school swallowed my sister Kathy’s skate. I saw the cracks on the edge but skated toward the middle ignoring the sounds and sensations below. My right foot went right through the ice down to my knee before I was able to retract it.  As the skate was two sizes too big, it easily came off when my ankle hit the edge of the jagged hole.  I knew it was lost and I was already cold before the ice bath.  I trudged home awkwardly and cried from pain in my right foot   Somehow I didn’t get in trouble.  Perhaps the extended tear-filled thaw of my right foot was penance for sneaking my sister’s skates?  Sorry, Kathy.   

I never played alone.  Ok, I almost never played alone except the one time ice skating on a fragile ice pond.  Where were you, Laney?

My next door neighbor Laney was always by my side, and together we followed Linda-Marie into the forest and beyond.  Linda-Marie seemed to have access and a deep knowledge of nature’s secret stories.  With Linda-Marie, we never just went for a walk.  We entered the forest and emerged into another time and place with unfolding drama and adventure.  Linda-Marie told us our roles and gave us names. I don’t recall the details, but do recall her telling me I was capable, ready to walk through death’s door.  “Death’s Door” was a natural rock ledge 15 feet above a bed of sharp rocks in the middle of a golf course that seemed to never have any people.  Although Linda-Marie built up the legend surrounding the need for all of us to cross the ledge to survive and stay in the group, I was pretty sure I could also legitimately die or at least become a massive inconvenience to anyone having to scrape my body off the rocks. I watched Linda-Marie confidently cross the ledge and Laney almost prance behind her.   I believed in my skill, yet that day I was afraid.  I took my first wobbly step and pushed a few small stones over the ledge to the rocks below.  The ledge was hidden from view by a tall maple tree.  Panicked by the thought of not being able to cross without help, I grabbed a leafy branch to steady myself.  The branch quivered wildly and the force caused me to pull the leaf stems toward me as I crouched and looked at the descending trunk and angled rocks below.  I gasped with panic and looked forward to Linda-Marie and Laney with prayerful fear and trust.  “Let go!” Linda-Marie whisper-shouted.

“You can do it, Diane.  You can do it!” Laney shouted with her earnest belief in me.  I let go and felt immediate control of my balance return. I slowly stood to a standing position.  I looked back wondering if I should give up.  I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, took a long, deep breath and started across. I lept off the last step to the solid ground and fell down.  “You did it!” they cheered for me.  I laughed as they each grabbed one of my hands to help me stand and walk off arm and arm.

Afterword

My memories are like bound knots on an endless string I fidget with in the dark of my pant pocket.  I hold and graze my fingers over the uneven bumps trying to tease open one bend, sometimes gently, other times aggressively.  My sister, friends, photos and journal entries validate the existence of these knots and so I move down the string perhaps
changing the tension by focusing somewhere else for a while.

It is an uncomfortable, vulnerable feeling when my friend Laney talks of a shared experience with colorful clarity and emotion and I have little to hold onto but trust of her memory I was there.   I may get details wrong. What I do
remember are my bread crumbs of value and purpose.   I am Irish and will not let the dry bread go to waste.  I toss it in the pot as thickener for a better texture in my stew.