When i was young i had a place i used to go, to think to write to enjoy and relax. By it's creek it was always cooler and in the shade while in my favorite tree all i had to do was reach up and grab the blueberries as they ripened on the vine.
I can still remember the pattern of the trees to get to my favorite place on earth. The small nook in which rested three trees and a small sandbar. A stream passed cold clear water through around the bend in the bank. It sat low beneath the creek bank, out of sight until you were standing just on top of it.
Always the smello of the place can return to me. The tree that came to be known as my "Resting Tree" Was the Magnolia tree, many days the air was fragrant with the scent of magnolia and jesper, cape jesmine and honeysuckle. The creek brought it's own unique aroma of water, and algae. Mississippi always has a unique scent, like rain had just fallen and the grass, and trees were wet with the rain.
The small amount of sand was what i considered to be my first beach, i loved the way it squished through my toes. Muggy, and cold like the water rushing beside it. The Resting Tree itself may have been hard wood, but it always felt smooth, beneath my posterior and the branch folded into the trunk in the perfect curve. Allowing my back to rest easily. Some days i would stay so long i could feel the dew forming cold on my clothes. Sticking them fast to my skin, and plastering my hair to my face. I never seemed to mind. I spent many nights there, in the chilly summer nights, watching the stars behind the Magnolia branches.
In the early morning the roosters crow and donkey bray were audible over the wind passing through the trees. As the evening drew nearer i could hear the crickets begin to sing their sad song and the whippoorwill shouted it's endless tune. Sometimes in the darkest of nights i could swear i heard the cry of a panther, but my grandfather often said it was just my imagination. The coyotes were real, and at times frightening but never as frightening as hearing the sound of a timber Rattlesnake shaking it's tail, it spoke a warning everyone in the animal kingdom could recognize and even the fiercest of predators knew to stay away.
In the right time of year, when the season was just right. The blueberries would ripen and the sweetness of memory still calls the taste to my lips. But the true sweetness was in the honeysuckle the work and effort put into retrieving such a tiny drop of nectar was always worth it, it's a taste i can never forget. But those things aside i can remember the wind, always seemed to taste a bit sweeter, floral and humid as all Mississippi air tended to be. But, there it seemed to be even more so. Perhaps it was the resting Tree, Perhaps the blueberries or the honeysuckle or all of the above.
I found it, in the Winter of my eleventh year, I happened across it chasing a squirrel which i have always loved to hunt. Unfortunately for myself i was a clumsy kid, my one track mind set on pursuing the furry little thing i completely forgot my footing. I had chased it into an unknown part of my grandfathers land, which was adjacent to my families. Little did i know that this was going to be a place i would never forget, nor would i forget the next three days. The creek bank on one side was small and ran into a sand bar that connected directly to the water, on the other side it was a six or seven foot drop. This is the side i stepped off of. I was unlucky to have broken my left leg, but lucky that i didn't shoot myself in the fall.
as my body connected with the ground my head connected with an ironwood stump. It knocked me completely unconscious for almost twelve hours. When i woke it was far past dark and nearly below freezing my leg was swollen, and stiff. faced with the challenge i used my upper body strength to drag myself out of the freezing water and onto the sand bar, that was the first time i found myself, leaning my wioght upon what came to be known as, The Resting Tree
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