The young man skipped rocks across the pond he had grown up by that seemed so small now. The trees he once climbed have lost their branches to age, and a frayed piece of rope, once a tire swing he would swing on, dropping into the cool waters of the pond, was now just a memory of his childhood.
He walked into the woods past the old bridge, where he had kissed his first girlfriend, who ran away afterward, he guessed, to tell her friends. He couldn't walk on it anymore as time had given it back to nature, but that couldn't stop the memories.
He scanned the tree line, looking for his old tree house, and finally spotted it a far cry from its beginnings, with a couple of boards still hanging by a thread as the rest had fallen to the ground, taking it with it the summer nights with his friends reading comic books with flashlights and scary stories that remained with them for quite a while.
His mind raced as he remembered the first fish he caught and a broken arm he got from falling out of that tree house. He remembered the smells of the woods and the night sounds that sent chills down his spine. He remembered Mom's apple pie and Dad's Captain Black pipe tobacco, which he could close his eyes and smell for a passing moment.
Fresh-cut wildflowers and fireflies in mason jars. Homemade kites and freshly churned ice cream on a hot summer night.
He emerged from the woods as the sun began to set, and the man in the moon lit his way home. I never thought a visit back home would bring back lost times so vividly, but they did, and I made a promise to myself to take the memories with me, no matter where my journey leads.
Mike 2025
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