A story from home

There's something important I need to talk about, but I'm having trouble finding any words at all.

Instead I'll talk about a creek I grew up with. I was always the adventurous sort. Finding small clearings in the little bit of solid woods my small, though highly populated, town had. Walking with a friend through some tall plants near the creek only to find out it was filled with poison ivy. I'm not affected by it, but my friend was. That was a one time adventure, heh

It was on that trip I saw something across the creek that would become my escape from the world for many years. On the other side, the earth ran high up to a side road. There were also small "sitting areas" just along the water.

Getting down there was always half the fun . It was steep from years of erosion and flooding. Every step had to be sure and well placed or risk sliding a good 15 feet into at times a very shallow bank. But at the bottom, there was more erosion so there was several places to sit. I lost countless hours to that creek. It was my place to think or not, depending on what I needed.

Very few of my friends ever knew about it. The ones who did enjoyed the solitude as much as I. The same friend who ventured out into the poison ivy was the one who sat with me at the creek the most.

One boyfriend saw it and my younger brother. That's always a fun story. We snuck out of the house in the middle of the night. I took him to my favorite spot. We didn't have flashlights, not that I would have needed one. But oh I wish I had one that night. I didn't know the creek had risen four feet.

There's this ledge as I'd climb down and once I got to it, everything wasn't as steep. It was essentially the alcove area to suit in with a small slanted path leading to it. However that night, right at the edge of the ledge, I went to slide off the ledge to the small path and found my whole leg covered in water.

I went out there in the middle of the night many times after that, but you can be sure I always checked that ledge for water from that point on.