In each city and every town down through to the country, there can be found spaces special and unique to us alone, our own secret places. Something lent from within elevates them, we share a portion of our time to escape there. Cautiously we may bring company. Without particular criteria save that inside which guides our selection, sometimes huge and vacant, maybe small tucked away unseen in the midst of commotion. Is the calm pull present now, or do they linger in a memory of once was? Share them with us.
in small servings I have offered a few already, to start, here are more of my own...
An enclave of grass, tall over my young blond hair, with narrow passages worn weaving through. Winding my way sometimes left at the fork, others right while taking hold of the lush green blades to feel them break as I continue forward without releasing my grasp. Occasionaly the path will tunnel through the dark tangled heart of a bush. I will slow my progress, now on hands and knees over dirt, to negotiate stray branches. Bright sun flicker filtering through the waving blades fills the warm air with sleepiness. I pad down a small nook adjacent to the passage, curl into a light nap spun of the rustling and shifting pale shadows. After the grass was trimmed no longer tall enough to explore lost within, it came stronger and deeper to me in vivid dreams.
On bikes and walking, looking for these specific places to claim secret we spent summer afternoons. Climbing trees, sitting under railroad bridges on rotten foundation logs while the water ran by. Over and among rocks along the river, sometimes stopping to skip small flat stones across the surface, from behind blackberry vines a dark gaping hole constructed of concrete came forwards. The tunnel floor was of two channels, the left a straight passage, the right a interlocking series of short cement blocks causing the water to wind left and right back and forth slowly to the downspout for the river. Interesting only for a while, we proceeded further up the creek which flowed through. Years later under other intentions I visit it now, shared with others we enjoy the open seclusion. Sometimes sitting on dry portions of the concrete to talk and eat the dark dusty berries while taking a rest, listening to the muted passage of cars overhead. Tense, tangled, I may sit alone letting soft water sounds smooth out the complications, grateful to have salvaged a ruined day. The day will grow darker and the tunnel, end lit only, becomes dim so the entrance falls behind our backs as we wearily climb the slope away from it. The winter waters rise too high, there is no way to go in, with the spring rains dwindling I will soon return. I know already that I will see a small square of river framed at the end, first stepping in the tunnel, the feeling is blurry with a year of cold though.
There was a barn, since torn down. Dry hay, dirt, and scraps of wood spread over the floor under a roof showing small portions of sky. Aging, leaning, still strong enough to climb among some of the use forgotten structures and look around. Birds took circuits in and out of the ragged holes in the walls nearly two stories high. One door opened to a small clearing walled on each side with towering blackberry bushes, picking them for pie and other treats or sitting carefully among the rusty nails in the breeze.
We went there so few times that it was hard to find every time we'd decide to go. We didn't dare go often because it was too good to be true. There was the fear that if we went too often, others would find out and it would be ruined.
There was little if any sign that anyone knew but just a few of us. It was a long way out of town, so it took a pretty good commitment to go. It killed an afternoon, and there was nothing to do out there but see it. We did have one friend whose parents had a cabin near it, but it was seldom that he'd actually be out there if we went. And his mom and dad sure didn't want to see us trooping up the driveway.
The last part of the drive to see it was all dirt road. That lasted for at least a half hour. You'd be dusty and hot by the time you got there. But the beauty of what lay ahead would cleanse your soul and your body.
We'd park the car and walk for about 15 minutes. We'd often get lost trying to find it. Even now, many years later, I could find almost any place I've ever been. Except this one. I wouldn't know where to start, except for the city and state.
As we got closer, the ferns on the ground would become more lush. The air would get cooler. And then, there it would be. Just as we had seen it last time, but were secretly afraid we'd never see again.
The big grey rocks went about halfway around on one side, and the other side was almost ground level. As you peered over the edge, you could see directly to the bottom, just as if it were only a few inches away. But it was much deeper. You could smell the clean, clean scent of the underground spring that fed this little accident of a pool. It was only about 10 feet across and 10 feet deep, but when you slithered in and went to the bottom, it could have been Atlantis, buried thousands of feet inside the ocean.
At the bottom, you could feel the origin of the water.
The origin of the water.
The bridge goes over a rocky creek, surrounded by trees that shelter the space and make the whole world wilderness, from there. You can stand on the bridge and look at the moon, the only light. I found out there that you can almost be blinded by the moon.
A mythology grew up around the bridge. You only come to the bridge when you have a question. You come there especially when the question defies words. You come there and you stand against the rail until the question is answered.
First you walk to the centre of the bridge, and face the eastern side. You light a cigarette, and listen to the smoke rise. Now you must answer honestly: Do you have anything to throw off of the bridge? I have thrown into the water, in a symbolic letting go, a pen, a pack of cigarrettes, and a photograph.
Now finish the cigarette and you are ready to go underneath. It is dark and wet at night, and you can see trolls if you're afraid. But once you sit, and begin to watch the water, fear and time are gone. You stay there as long as you need to.
A secret place for me is inside a shell inside of which I can still see, if I so choose, the world around me. It puts a layer of something not easily pushed aside between me and the things that sometimes scare me about the world, layers of sheet metal or glass.
One place could easily be my Festiva, my little red car. I don't have passengers usually, and I drive as though I don't expect to. The passenger seat is always full of cassette tapes; my emergency brake has just enough room on either side to hold a medium drink from any fast food joint I frequent. I have that elusive feeling of control. Over the temperature, speed, sound, and motion of my little red bubble. It gives me the illusion of movement and direction, of accomplishment and equality. It makes me feel less incapable of functioning in the world.
....more to come
At The Station
I sometimes see shadows of myself here, walking. Or folded into corners, watching Wet crows taking bits of me like worms.
I have jumped a hundred times Shrieking on the metal tracks I grow like grass between the stones.
Here I am made small. Here I own nothing. I pull the world off like a shredded raincoat, Transfixed by loss.
The engine sighed to a halt. Silence, rain pounding, distant thunder, soft breathing. I got out and ran to the river under the cover of darkness. Carefully I chose a patch of wet grass (only slightly less wet than the air) and sat down. The water soaked through my clothes, my hair, my thoughts. Lightning lit up the air around me and showed the treetops on the other side of the water; another land but really not so far off. A small family of geese clucked their way through the rain towards me. Did they even see me? No, no, they almost touched my legs they were so close. Slowly they groomed themselves and moved on.
I don't know if I will ever go back. Perhaps when things are completely different it will be allowed. Maybe never. I don't know.
One night my friends just ended up hanging out there sitting on the concrete retaining wall chatting, complaining about not having anything to do, and all the other things that high school youths talk about. After that night this place started to hold great power for me. It was tranquil. Being somewhat halfway inbetween the city and nature, it reminded me of my dual nature, how I am not either really a city boy or a farm boy, but somewhere in between. I like to think I am the best of both worlds.
Occasionally I would visit this place during the day, but it didn't seem to be any of the things it seemed to be during the night. Perhaps there were too many people there. You see at night there was hardly anyone there. The occasional night fisherman, or horny couple (a motive of which I admit had brought me there a couple times), or maybe another group like our own. My close group of friends would occasionally get some of our extended friends to go there with us. I'm not sure if the lake meant as much to them as it did us, or if it even meant as much to my close friends as it did to me.
Cemeteries are my refuge. A place to disappear into markers of past lives. A place to rest my worries, or confront them. These are the parks of contemplation. Okay, it sounds a bit morbid, but cemeteries are the only place where I can really kick back. And ruined graveyards are the most favoured.
When I spent time in santa cruz, california, there was a house I lived in for a few years that was fifteen minutes walk from the beach (could sometimes hear the crash of waves or complaints of sea lions or screams of roller coaster riders), ten minutes walk from the downtown garden mall and my favoured coffeehouse, and fifteen minutes from Evergreen Cemetery, which was situated right on the edge of a Redwood park, nestled in a hill, overgrown with ivy, ruined by overgrowth and earthquakes and vandals. Eucalyptus trees shaded one side, redwood trees shaded another.
I worked graveyard, and was quite the night owl, and would often find myself wandering the streets of the city after midnight on my days off, sometimes just because I could, other times to get my thoughts and emotions together. I'd start off with a stroll down to the coffee joint for coffee, or to the Red Room for a couple shots of jaeger. Then I'd head down to the ocean some nights, either straight down near the Boardwalk, looking at the silent rides on one side, and the echoes of waves on the other, crossing the Lost Boys Rail Bridge, dropping stones into the mouth of the San Lorenzo river. Or heading up towards the lighthouse along East Cliff, with its view of the Bay, and sometimes catching sight of midnight surfers out in the waves. Or just wandering the streets of the city, following the calls of birds, who'd always lead me in some interesting direction. Some nights I'd find myself heading towards Evergreen, and I had several ways to get there: Over near my home in a straight direction and stopping by the Windmill Bed and Breakfast where I could look at/listen to the waterwheel or sneak into their back garden to sit in the grillwork gazebo covered in little white lights and blow smoke bubbles. Up from the red room, going down Squid Row (stopping to play a tune on the big rusty Hummingbird xylophone, or dropping off a dead lighter in the top hatted frog sign with many light sockets now being used by friends and I as a dead lighter graveyard) and up slick stairs to the old Louden Nelson home and across a park in front of the catholic church. Over down by the Sash Mill, where some back road dumped me into the back playing field of a catholic school that was a short cut over towards the freeway overpass that most of these paths lead to. Then up the spiral approach of the overpass, which used to be covered in graffitI that I dubbed the Cola Wars: COKE IS IT! PEPSI ROCKS! RC IS THE BEST!, and then spiral down to walk along a path next to the freeway, kicking fallen eucalyptus leaves and twigs, making sure to step on the one stencil of a footprint with the word CLICK! written next to it and down the hill to the edge of Harvey West Park and if it was the right time of year, squinting in moonlight or lamplight at blackberry bushes for a late night snack.
There is a main gateway to Evergreen, but I always used to take the first entrance, and wobbly stack of bricks that I call the Dr. Seuss steps, and which had a path straight up to the chinese graveyard, which really were just a few headstones way out of the way, and a little wooden deck that overlooked the Army graveyard. A good place to sit and rest and look out for other people that might be haunting the place. Sometimes a group of gothish punks would barge in and rampage around, and I always made sure they never saw me, as, well, they were punks. One time I made some eerie noises and they got spooked and I never saw them there again. Usually the only other inhabitants of the place were wildlife: deer, a skunk, a couple cats, and even a goat! Often it was just sitting on this deck that satisfied me, other times I'd find myself heading along the many paths and up the main stretch, Heritage way, to the highest point. Picking roses from a rose tree. sitting on a crypt and writing by candle light. One night I was doing this near the main road and a security guard for the park drove by and called me over, telling me gruffly to leave, his urgings echoed by a big dog next to him. I got my notebook and went down to the Seuss steps and waited for him to come back. This time the guy was more relaxed, and I asked him what sort of regulations there were about the park, since there were no signs giving closing hours. He said there actually wasn't any closing times, but a month before they'd found a young man in a crypt late at night masturbating among the bones, and so now all the nearby park security were pretty edgy about people in the cemetery. I guess I would be too.
Cemeteries don't creep me out. In fact, they do the opposite: they calm me. They are my place of catharsis, where I think, and think and think until I can't think anymore and all my worries fade out into the place. If I couldn't sleep at night, a trip to Evergreen would at least get me tired enough that I could crash into bed back home. I always left Evergreen to go home with a lighter heart.
The first would have to be a small, gnarled tree in the back of the parking lot of my elementary school. Although it is by no means hidden from the view of others I spent many private moments here- both alone and with my best friend. This is the place where we would run immediately after being let out of the cafeteria to escape the peers with which we shared a mutual distaste. For some reason they would never bother walking all the way across the cement battlefield to torment us. It must have been too much trouble. Come to think of it another place we used to retreat to for shelter lay in the same parking lot. There was an incredibly tiny, cramped clearing behind a thorny rose bush. We would have to sneak behind a fence in order to climb back over and drop into the clearing. These places were used to share stories and, later, for the creation of our own alternate universe where we spent as much time as we could hiding away from the thorns and barbs of reality. On a return visit to this location a month or so ago we discovered that the tree had been cut down by fiendish gardeners. Apparently some of the overhanging limbs had been causing damage to unwary drivers. There was a long moment of silence. Then we left.
Behind the public high school in my hometown is a field used for soccer and other sports. This is the area where I would meet with a small group of friends every day after school. It is important to note here that I did not attend this school. I went to a Catholic school in another town where I lived largely in solitude. It was only when I came to this place that I was able to walk around without some degree of paranoia and/or anger. Here I had friends. Or at least people with whom I could connect on some level. The field was where we would go to play frisbee or, at night, to just sit and talk under the stars. Many tears were shed here for various reasons and by various people. I still go back there sometimes, but it is never the same. Perhaps this is because I no longer speak to most of those people, or perhaps it is because the field has changed somehow. A permanent marker of our time there remains- a few spots of dried blood on the bleachers where a friend slashed his arm repeatedly after breaking up with his girlfriend.
our secret place was the drain near our house. my brother and me and our gang got down there one day and found a passage, with a trickle of water in it. it led to a round concrete chamber, big enough for the six of us to hang out in.we dragged in old car seats from the dump and cooked stuff on the fire, we painted windows on the walls.we were around 12 at the time. for the next four years, you could find some of us there, whenever things went wrong, just hanging out and reading damp curled comics by the light of a torch.the darkness felt safe.
The fort also became a headquarters of sorts for our frequent flights of fancy, and was the home of numerous alternate time-lines and worlds, discussions of the X-men's Summers Clan and of course, girls.
The Dam - At the back corner of our property, shared with three other owners was the dam. Big enough that we could swim in it, murky and muddy enough that we didn't.
The main feature of the dam was the 6' high mounds of dirt that must have come from its excavation. They provided a barrier against the house and the rest of the property, and thus the area became a quiet refuge from feuding families and physical chores.
The Dam was even quieter than the creek, with the only sound being the soft snorting of the nearby horses, or of distant cows calling out to each other.
If you came here at the right time of day (that is, night time), there should be a beautiful sea of lights stretching outwards towards the terminal off in the distance. If you're lucky, you can watch an airliner take off, and feel the roar as it turns its engines to full power.
Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago as a teenager I had a willow treee behind a Dominicks grocery store that I would climb, and a stretch of road heading north out of Cook County I would bicycle on when depressed or angry.
When I moved to the city after high school, I lived in Bucktown. There was a church I would go to late at night with a small stairwell leading down to a door. It was allways locked and allways silent. I would often venture there to think, to smoke, to cry or just to sit. It was my secret power spot in Chicago.
Letter on I got a job as a bicycle messenger and I would often hide myself in skyscraper stairwells inbeteween deliveries in order to smoke pot.
2 years latter I found myself living in Santa Cruz, California... I had a tree I would hide out in in the Pogonip forrest. It was an old burnt out redwood with a small hollowed out hidey-hole. It was great for the silence and the cool air... I even once saw a UFO while spending the night there.
Now that I live in Torino, Italy I have yet to find a secret spot. I mean I have certain intersections that I like and there is a stretch of the Po river that I enjoy walking along when feeling solitary, but nothing that compares to my secret spots from the past.
Well now that I´m living in Bonn, Germany - once again I need to begin the search for a new secret spot. Turns out my spot back in Torino was at this bar called Cafe des Arts. It wasn´t solitary or even secret, but it was my place and I miss it. I could always count on a friendly face and a nice drink.
So now I´m in Germany ... Bonn has the Rhine Rivber and I have noticed a nice small Jewish cemitary along its banks. There is also a weird WWI & WWII memorial in my neighborhood on a spooky cul de sac. But no definet spot yet other than rollin in my byby´s arms.
I'll find it; it'll find me... I'm certain of it.
printable version chaos
Everything2 Help
cooled by dannye
