“Would you like to own some property?” my dad asked me when I was close to turning ten years old.  I didn’t understand what he was really saying, but in my mind I saw an expanse of land that horses roamed.  But soon that image would be replaced by poplar and pine trees, small creeks wedged between steep hills, and a winding dirt road filled in at times with loads of granite rocks.

The property was timbered, and so the landscape was twisted, but there were areas, like the top of the tallest hill and then the low wetlands where scraggly pines and deciduous trees and shrubs, hollies and dogwoods, found and provided refuge.  Walking around with my dad was the first time I saw a persimmon tree.  The fruit looked to be both a sick tomato and a glowing glob of sunset.

The first days I spent on the property in Mecklenburg , Virginia were spent following new trails made by my dad with a machete and playing with my best friend in a fresh creek bed, a creek bed made by torrent rains draining down three hills directed by the tilt of the land, rocks, and fallen trees.

Moss and ferns were set to grow, and would soften everything, as would the slow decay of fallen trees, but while my best friend and I explored, we saw how the rain ripped through, how the trees crashed down, and how the rocks refused to roll.  Two girls, nearly ten, we jumped from ledge to ledge, stepped from rock to rock, climbed on small, bent saplings and swung on vines.  We were permitted to be a bit wild and unsupervised, and under the blue sky with the fat, white summer clouds, my first experience of the land and the area was its nature, its openness, and its unpolished potential.