This was taken on the far end of the playground of the now-torn down grade school that I went to back in Wisconsin. It used to seem like this treeline was miles and miles from the school building – that we could run until our lungs burst, legs ached, and finally, FINALLY, we would get this far. Now a couple of strides of my absurdly long legs brings me to this spot.
I stand here and look out and I don’t know what I’m looking for. I feel something inside that I cannot put words to.
In Stephen King’s Dark Tower series, The Gunfighter has a recurring phrase attached to him and his reminiscences: “that was before the world moved on.”
The place is gone. The people I knew there are gone. I remain. But that world has moved on and I am no longer a part of it.
I stand where we used to go out in the deep winter, in snowdrifts up to our waists, and play a violent quasi-football game, where the object was for everyone to chase down and tackle the person with the ball. It was always dark and cloudy and snowing when we played this. I think the weather brought out something primeval from inside all the Nordic types at the school; something buried deep within the genetic race memories we all had of getting into the dragon-headed longboats and heading across the North Sea to the English foreshore, to loot and pillage. So we played our game and the teachers would reprimand us and we’d crouch down in our chairs and then a couple of days would go by and the wind would kick up again, and we’d be back at it…