The Secret Spot

Behind a playground in the suburban town of The Woodlands, TX, lies a bed of forest. Although the name of the town — The Woodlands — would make one think it has vast amounts of woods, money-hungry developers have come in and destroyed most of the natural beauty in this town. But, exactly a ten-minute walk from my grandparent’s house is a forest, our forest, that my sister, memaw, and I named “The Secret Spot.”

My memaw discovered The Secret Spot one afternoon in 2007, the same year the movie Bridge To Terabithia came out while walking her Great Pyrenees, Cheyenne. A few days later, as she and my four-year-old sister picked me up from my first-grade class in her cream-colored Mercury Mountaineer, and she told me she had a surprise for me, that she had just found a magical forest behind a park. Her green eyes widened as she said this, causing my eyes — a carbon copy of hers — to widen as well.

***

My memaw grew up in Vidor, Texas, during the 1960s. Vidor was, and still is, a small, poor town. My memaw grew up wearing flour sacks that her mother had made into clothing and lived in the projects. She had limited forms of entertainment when she was a child, so she heavily relied on her imagination, something she carried with her into adulthood and has held onto every day since.

***

A stick was never a stick, it was a magic wand that we must use to fight the ogre (my pawpaw). The small white dog who barked as we made our way down the dirt path sandwiched in between large houses was not an annoying dog, he was a polar bear, snarling at us, warning us to stay away from his home. I spent countless days running ahead of my memaw, sister, and Cheyenne and drew bear claws in the dirt.

“Memaw look!” I would say, “it’s the polar bear!” Her eyes would grow large, her mouth dropped open, and she would tell me to stay close to her. That the polar bear could break free at any minute, and we would have to run to the safety of our Secret Spot.

***

Before my memaw found our fantasy land, others had claimed it as their own. Someone had placed planks, as my memaw would say, “bridges,” between ditches and the small stream that runs through The Secret Spot. By a beach of sand next to the creek, someone made a rope swing from a large tree, the only tree on the beach. The woods seemed too good to be true, like Mother Nature had personally made our Secret Spot as a playground for children.

***

After our first visit to The Secret Spot, my memaw bought us all rainboots, so that we could run in the water without returning home muddy. Another time, she made a bed for my sister in a red wagon, “we’re going on an adventure!” she told us as her small frame lugged my sister, who wore a bright pink cast on her left leg, behind her. For the rest of my childhood, The Special Spot would remain our prime hangout spot. Where my sister and I could forget about the constant fighting between our mother and father and create our own world, where there was no homework, bullies, or adults.

***

One day, my sister and I collected muscles and put them in a bowl with mud from the creek and water and brought them home.

On another day, I could have sworn I saw a fairy in the distance. When I told my memaw about my discovery, she said that the fairies were who had led her to The Secret Spot. “Thank you!” we screamed at the top of our lungs.

***

When I was in second grade, my family moved four hours away from my memaw and the Secret Spot. But every holiday, time off from school, and summer, the Secret Spot remained our favorite place to spend our time.

The last time my sister, memaw, and I all went to the Secret Spot together was long before my memaw left my pawpaw to be with her high school boyfriend.

But, when my mother, her new boyfriend, my sister — my new family, and I moved back to The Woodlands in 2016, I continued to visit my childhood fantasy land. When my family moved to Houston in 2017, and I moved in with my pawpaw, I took my best friend, my dog, Townes, to The Secret Spot so often that it now seems memories with him have replaced those of my childhood days spent there.

Although I began to visit alone, my connection to The Secret Spot did not disappear. I still felt at home in the vast woods around me. As Townes ran around on the beach and lay in the water, I would bring my journal and write down every feeling that came along with my teenage years, and all of the depression and angst that I felt at the time. I still lost myself in all of the natural beauty, the magic, of The Secret Spot. It seemed that the forest had grown with me; it knew me better than even my own family. Every time I brought Townes to The Secret Spot, I imagined the forest sighing with a breath of release that I had finally returned.

In September of 2017, right after moving to New York City for college, I visited my family in Houston for the weekend. While I was home, I took Townes to The Special Spot, only to see it flooded and full of mosquitoes caused by the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. I left without letting Townes off the leash, he whined.

***

According to the photo album on my iPhone, the last time that Townes and I went to The Secret Spot was 30 May 2018. Since then, old age has meant that Townes no longer can stand being in a car for the hour that it takes to get from Houston to The Woodlands. I have not been back alone since. It seems as if The Secret Spot is now just a memory, a staple part of my childhood, rather than the enchanted forest it once was.

The Secret Spot has served its purpose for me and has accepted that I have grown up. It has moved on from my sister and me. The last time that I basked in its beauty, I saw a new generation of children running around in its woods. My childhood forest has moved on from my sister and me. But it has not stopped imploring children to let loose in it. Instead, it has invited a new generation of young minds into it. Who are ready to create their own world inside its Neverland. Where the troubles of growing up can escape the worries of children, as they run wild through the grass, swing across the pond on a rope tied to a tree and swear that out of the corner of their eyes, they saw a fairy.