Depending on time of year when you arrive there may be water running slow, trickling over the collected rock mounds created through time or students. There may be nothing but leaves on the ground and empty branches above as you walk the thin, winding paths. Your feet may crunch underneath you with each step. Depending on time of year, leaves might fall and land on your shoulder from the full branches. Leaves might cling to the trees, hanging on as the wind knocks them down, sending them twirling and spinning and floating across the stream bed.
Depending on time of day, you might see squirrels running along branches, stopping to look around, calling out loudly and then running across, jumping from tree to tree, skittering across leaves to run up another tree, chasing each other, fluffing their tails, running away from the sounds of the parking lot around the corner. You might hear ducks quacking, distant water, cars passing somewhere behind the trees, a car horn on a road close by. No matter which path you take, you’ll have to pass through groves of several trees. Some of the trees are tall and withered. Some of the trees are thick with long hanging branches, like arms hanging from a body, loose and still. Some of the leaves on these trees are thin and spindly and only blocking the sun, streaking down into the ground with sunlight. Some of the leaves are large bodied and fan-like, shaking with the wind.
You can sit on the rocks in the dryness and watch the leaves fall. Here you can think. Here you can be quiet. Here you can yell, but someone would hear you. It’s close but secluded. It’s quiet but humming. Here you can be calm and at peace. Come find this place between the trees and let it envelop you.
Toy Skeleton 