The Enchanted Forest

When I was a kid, I was always envious of my friends that lived in the country, surrounded by trees run through with interesting paths that I was certain would lead to some magical land.  I thought for  certain that if I lived near a forest, wonderful things would happen to me.  Don’t get my wrong, my house was pretty cool too, and my overactive creative imagination had plenty to work with.  For instance, our swing set doubled as a circus tent or (depending on the day) a mystery club hideout with secret entrances (modeled after the hideout in a series of young adult mystery books, the title of which escapes me and Google is of no help).  I used to crawl underneath the monster honeysuckle bushes that lined the fence around our pool and imagined an entire village existed under there.  I could go on, but I’m afraid you might already think I’m a little nuts.

As I got older, my imagination remained active, but I put it towards more productive uses – i.e., homework assignments.  However, I continued to love mystery novels and stories that truly drew you in and made you feel as if you were really a part of what was going on.  For instance, I love Harry Potter.  I read those stories over and over again. (Yeah, I’m in my 30s, so what?)  My fascination with a thick grove of trees hasn’t waned, either.  I can walk through the woods and my thoughts start running in overdrive.  I feel like I could write an entire novel based upon the feelings, sights, and sounds that wash over me in a period of just five minutes.

When I was a senior in high school, I went to visit my step-sisters in San Diego.  I fell in love with the city almost immediately, and while I loved the beaches and ocean (of course), they took me to these unbelievable forests with paths that led to enormous, ancient trees with rope swings.  To this day, I can remember what those woods looked like and how I felt as we explored them (without having to look at the pictures, which I have plenty of).  I vowed during that trip that I would move to San Diego after college and frequent those paths.

Now, fifteen years later, I still live in the midwest, I rarely visit our state forests, and my imagination is stifled.  Where am I going with this, you might be asking.  Over the past four days I have driven over 1000 miles for work (no joke, 1000 miles, in a car, by myself, in four days).  I had a lot of time alone with my thoughts.  Most of those thoughts were negative, angry, self-deprecating.  I’d decided that I was not going to blog again until I was in a better frame of mind because no one likes to read depressing, negative blather.  I mean, I certainly don’t.  I was feeling hopeless.

Then I had an idea.  If I didn’t have anything positive to say, then I would start writing posts about things that happened or that I saw during the day but write them as short stories.  Maybe fictionalize them a bit.  Maybe they will remain individual stories.  Maybe they will morph into an actual novel.  And maybe, just maybe, I’ll find inspiration while taking a hike through the forest.