Stream of Consciousness/My Favorite Place

I have a new favorite place in the world.

It’s the stream by my house where the water flows over rocks and you can’t fish there.

Moss grows in all the little cracks and the rocks make the water bubble and sing and it’s beautiful. There are so many choices in the stream—the water is pushed one way or another, but it all meets up again, unless it gets lost in a crevasse to the side.

It’s our stream but there are other people’s things here—broken glass jammed tightly in the rocks by the bank, corn cobs, more than one rusting pot and hidden broken bottle necks. I wonder if they belonged to the person who lived here before us, or if they are a product of some younger side of my parents I’ve never seen. They make the hillside leading down to the stream glitter, and my bad eyesight prevents me from lamenting too much.

I now have a fear for my bare feet to keep me on the other side of the stream, near the woods, and that’s fine. Pine needles are softer than stone, anyway.

There are big little fish up to my knees in my favorite place. The rocks aren’t too slippery but I’m still cautious. If I fall here no one will come for me.

The way the light hits the water makes me think it will go on forever and I can submerge myself. I’ve lost sight of where I came from.

I pick up a bottle I think might not be quite broken and I am disappointed. There are box springs now beside me on the hill and I am convinced this wreckage is from another time. A squirrel watches me.

Water is caught in holes the rocks make, and bugs grow in them, like little tide pools of pine needles and leaves.

I imagine my favorite place must be a menace when the water is high—these rocks would make good rapids. Evidence of the water’s power shows where the rock has been worn smooth by time. In other places the rock is barely touched, still jagged edges rising from wet.

Rain is coming and I turn back, despite a clear path ahead displaying the rest of the river’s adventure. I don’t take the same route back.

The rocks are redder when they are wet, and I gain pitch-stained hands to compliment my already scratched legs. I look like an adventure has been done to me, I think.  

• 
• 191 of 806
•