After the hottest, driest June that I can recall, July was ushered in by big storms and blustery winds. It was 68 degrees fahrenheit when I left the house last Monday morning on my walk. Everything looked bright and green, and there was still a nice breeze. It didn't last, of course, but no one thought it would. July doesn't work that way.
The lovely weather compelled me toward the enchanted part of my neighborhood. It’s my imagination that has enchanted this particular stretch of road, but that’s the work of an imagination, isn’t it? To cast spells and call out spirits, to traverse the thin spaces?
Here is a hand drawn map of my neighborhood. The enchanted part of the neighborhood is on the left hand side (13).
Back when my dog was a pup and loved to take long walks with me in the morning, we regularly traveled through this part of the neighborhood, a mile or so from our house on Spencer Street. As my dog got older, our walks got shorter and shorter, and it was rare that we got over this way. But earlier this year, I made a decision to get to know my neighborhood better–not the people so much as the land itself. A hundred years ago, much of this place was farmland, but since that time, an army of trees has marched in and taken root and while some of the trees (oaks, sweet gums and pines, mostly) were felled to make way for homes, most of them were left alone. People wanted the trees and the marauding ivy. They wanted to live in a forest, even young as this one is.2
Which is to say, this land has a history all its own, sometimes peopled, sometimes not. I find this idea comforting. I also find it comforting that I live in a neighborhood (I accidentally just wrote neighborwood) where you can see the land reclaiming itself whenever it gets a chance.
Which brings us to Narnia. This January, I noticed a driveway with a huge oak tree laying across the pavement as though it had succumbed to a strong desire to take a nap. The driveway was slowly fissuring under the weight of multiple downed trees and simple neglect. The woods were thick on that property, so the sight lines had always been limited, but this was the first time I realized something was amiss–or afoot.
Naturally, I was curious, so I hopped over the tree (after stomping on the ground to alert any slumbering copperheads in the area) and headed up the cracked drive. It seemed at first that nothing was up there, just more trees and brown leaves and ivy and bittersweet and greenbrier. But then what to my wondering eye should appear but a … lamp post.
(This photo was taken in April, hence the incipient greenery)
The only Narnia book I read as a child (and re-read many times) was The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. So you can imagine that my pleasure at seeing this lamp post was enormous, and the only thing that could have made the moment any more magical was if I’d turned around to see the back of a wardrobe behind me.3 A lamp post! In the middle of a cold wood!
Naturally, this place seemed enchanted to me. It had the aura of magic, but also of ruin. The story told to me a few weeks later by my neighbor, Julie, a font of local folklore, is that an unhappy professor lived there with his second wife for many years until he succumbed to old age and illness. According to Julie, his second wife and stepchildren tore down the old house several years ago with plans to build a new one and then never did.
I returned to the site frequently over the course of the winter and into the early spring, before the undergrowth grew too thick for safe passage. I discovered that the driveway was actually a circular drive, and that it hosted multiple lamp posts. With the advent of spring, the landscaping near where the house once stood made itself known–azaleas, mostly, very pretty. I toyed with the idea of planting an herb garden in a sunny spot, but I reckoned making my way back here in mid-summer would prove somewhat harrowing (I’ve mentioned the copperheads, yes?) and I probably wouldn’t be able to tend to the garden properly.
It had been a couple of months since I made the trek to that part of the neighborhood on a regular basis. But the cool start to July got me in the mood for longer walks, and so I’ve hiked that way every day. As I suspected, the driveway is covered in fallen limbs and crowded with chokeberry and St. John’s Wort and a deeper inspection of the property would call for serious preparation (dressing in boots and jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, bringing a walking stick both to tap on the pavement and warn the snakes away and to break through the spiderwebs). I may leave the site alone for the time being. Still, I like to stand at the bottom of the driveway and wonder what’s going on back there.
Sometimes on my walks, I like to remember that this neighborhood is a lot more than a hundred years old; in fact, it’s been around for about 2 billion years. Over time, layers have been added and subtracted, and mass has been amassed. At some point lava may have been involved. Big stories have been happening here for a long time. And lots of little ones, too, many of which involve birds and raccoons and foxes and way too many squirrels, the descendants of whom are probably lodged in my tomato vines this very minute eating my Better Boys.4 Across the street from my enchanted forest is a house that once belonged to a family I knew and believed to happy. But then something fell and something fissured. A bag was packed and footsteps sounded on the stairs. 3,000 miles below, the earth’s core slowed. Somewhere nearby, a child pushed her way through the back of the wardrobe and another story began.
Spencer Street Collective News
Katherine and I met last week on her back porch. A new growing season starts mid-August, and we have a new plan to get our neighbors involved in the Grow Bag Revolution. We’re calling it “The Edible Street,” and the idea is to get as many people as possible to host grow bags planted with spinach, lettuce and other greens that grow well here in the fall and tolerate some shade.
12-year-old C. and I recently went to the library to do research on the farm that was here a hundred years or so ago. We know the family name, and we’ve found photos online of some of the homestead, but we want to dig deeper. We realized it’s going to take some time, and possibly a subscription to Newspapers.com. One thing we did discover was the whereabouts of what we think is the family graveyard, about three miles from here. We’re going to see if we can track it down this weekend.
C. and I have a couple of other projects in the works, including continuing our Spencer Street oral history project and publishing a newsletter. C. is the newsletter editor and has tons of great ideas for articles. We will of course be covering the Great Re-Homing of the Hens, which will happen in two weeks, when Amy and Anthony relocate their flock to Christy’s coop for the fall. Plans for a party are in the making!
I need to update the map; since drawing it I’ve discovered that there are two entrances to the Narnian landscape, not just one.
Or maybe this is the old forest returning after a long period of exile.
And maybe Mr. Tumnus. No, strike that. Mr. Tumnus showing up would have complicated this scene considerably.
Bastards!