Standing at this first place of exploration, seeming to stand above the entire city. I feel empathy to the people in those buildings, unknowing of the sun's arrival. Snow clothes the branches of the sad, cold trees; hot breath suffocates in the brisk 8 degrees. Noses turn red, and cheeks get rosy, bodies get restless as we impossibly try to take in all that we see. This place is a place of memory for me. I've been here before, multiple times. My friend and I used to cut class in high school and come here with our coffee and conversation. This place at this moment is still unique, despite the amount of class participation points I lost to this outlook. My friend and I have taken pictures on the hood of his car, leaning over the railing, capturing a moment that has come and gone. This place is the same as another, in which it plays host to memories held on to for a lifetime, or forgotten as soon as they are made. I will always remember this as a brilliant place to waste away time.
Defrosting, we find our own areas around the open Wood Center. I would usually seek out the most secluded space to observe my surroundings. Instead I take one more step on the deep green carpet that surprisingly had very few stains, and sit there on the open stairs. I too often get distracted by conversations of others, so much so that I do not come to the wood center to do anything but grab a drink, or some food. In the moment, I allow myself to become distracted. I honestly forgot my purpose for being in that place. I observed students gathered around lunches and coffee, talking about anything other than their class loads. I see this is a place unwind from the mornings of lectures and drafts. I see this place as a serene place to come and listen to your IPod while doing homework. For me, this place is full of potential. I came here while in elementary school with my band class. Coming into this building, with its abstract windows and tired students clutching their coffees, made me curious. A feeling that I never forgot all throughout grade school, and I still had sitting there on that shallow stair. I believe this place will always hold that familiar, mysterious lure for me. Knowing that in the Wood Center, there are people who are in many ways similar to you in their hopes and curiosity for the world.
I come home to my cabin at the end of every day. I could easily say that this fact makes it my place for just being my "home". It is not only a place in which I start and end my days. It is the place that my husband and I first called "ours". It is the first place I live in independently when my husband leaves for training for months. Living in a cabin outside of the city I used to rush around in, has made me grow as an individual. I went from being a daughter and living with my father, to being a wife and living with my husband. In my husband’s absence, I see it not as a time of being alone. It is a time that I appreciate, a time that I can use to become more secure in the person that I want to be. I learn to enjoy the sound of silence that surrounds my little log safe house. I find myself wishing I could spend weeks here at a time, just walking around the forest that waits so patiently outside my door. Just as when my husband leaves, being away from my place just makes me miss it more. Perhaps my attachment to this small cabin, located in what they lovingly call "the Ester ditch", is because not only does it recall memories of past hunting trips with my father, but it also brings thoughts of what could be.
Home is where fond memories are created and where the possibilities seem endless.
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