|
Hamilton Arts & Letters
During one of our stays in New Jersey to visit her grandmother, our daughter Anna, who was around ten years old, spent a good portion of each day at Goffle Brook, playing in the same water and woods where her mother and her three, long-departed uncles, and also her grandmother, had played in their childhoods.
The brook formed the property line of the side yard of the house. A short steep slope led down to the water’s edge. A path, carved and compacted into the side of the slope, followed the course of the brook behind a few neighbour’s homes, made a turn, and reappeared at the end of the dead-end street around the corner from the house.
The water was shallow and the brook could easily be waded. It had a sandy bottom and small, round stones. Trees overhung its singsong. Idyllic, in short.
Anna spent most of her afternoons absorbed in creek activities while we attended to our adult errands and interests. One day we sat outside on the concrete steps of the breezeway, waiting for her to answer our call home for dinner. She walked up the driveway at last, tired and happy.
“I can’t get enough of this place,” she said.
I want to follow my inner child up the creek. Chedoke Creek, in Hamilton, in the west end of the city.
[Distillate © HA&L + John Terpstra | {from the Greek bios} -- the course of a life.] [This article is sponsored by Bryan Prince Bookseller, acknowledged with thanks by the Editors and Samizdat Press.]
|