The Road

     The road that runs through the heart of Lightfall Hollow has substantially changed since my uncle first drove it and experienced a magical moment of wonder and home. Since that day sixty odd years ago, and for quite a few years after as I was growing up, the road was a deeply rutted, stony and weed-infested dirt. It was prone to flooding and so narrow that if two cars going in opposite directions came upon each other, one of those cars had to back up until a safe place to completely pull off the road was found, and the second car could pass.

     But that did not happen very often. Because, back then, the hollow was pretty much an undiscovered forest wilderness, and since it was rarely travelled, its road was not maintained. Even after a heavy snowfall, the road was not plowed.  My father and uncle used to wear snowshoes to make their winter treks to their hunting camp and our family’s cottage. Something I don’t think they minded at all.

     As a little girl, I didn’t mind either that the hollow’s road was neglected and deserted. Primarily because it meant that my parents were not at all afraid to let me walk the road by myself. Which I did every chance I got. Down the road, I would walk to an old, gnarled, and hollowed-out oak. There, I would curl up inside the tree’s hollow and dream. It was like the tree was my mother, and I was inside her, waiting to be born.

     Up the road, I would walk a steep, rigorous, heart-taxing ascent. Its physical challenge seemingly substantiated by the makeshift tombstone sitting along the road’s edge with May 31, 1931 scratched upon its surface, the crude monument of jagged native rock marking where a farmer who had lived in the hollow collapsed and died of a heart attack.  There, I would kneel in the dirt and wonder what dying alone on the road at the apex of spring and surrounded by freshly leafed out trees must have been like. I always concluded it could not have been bad.

     All these many years later, as the little girl I once was hurtles towards age seventy, the oak tree down the hollow is still standing, but she has aged to the place where I fear she may flop over dead any time now. The makeshift tombstone up the hollow is still standing too, but the date scratched upon it has become lichen-splotched and faded to the place where it is almost illegible. While the stone now leans at such a precarious angle, I fear it may soon fall over.

     As for the road running through the heart of the hollow, today it is well-maintained. In all honesty, much better than many a city street where I have resided. The local township government’s road crew regularly smooths out its ruts, fills in its potholes, repairs its flaws, restores its crown, installs and cleans out its culverts, as well as adds ample amounts of gravel to its dirt. They do a tremendous job. Including in winter when, within a few hours of any snowfall, they plow the road and restore it to a much less risky drive. 

     Over the years, the township has also widened the road. Its current width is twice what it was when I was girl. Which is beneficial, since encountering other vehicles on the road has become a common occurrence.  Now two cars going in opposite directions can safely pass one another. Although, even on sunny days, I drive with my headlights on, and if I do meet a car or other vehicle going in the opposite direction, I slow down, pull off to the side a bit, and usually even come to a stop.

     Almost always, the other driver practices the same dirt road etiquette and returns the courtesy. It’s nice. Although it can get a little awkward if we both are stopped and then get into a hand-motioning/headlight-blinking war about who should proceed first.

     As the road has changed so has the hollow the road runs through. No longer an isolated forest wilderness, now it is more of a friendly, peaceful woodland. Benign magic pulsates through the trees. I feel it every day, as familiar and true as a beating heart. So, it is no wonder I imagine this little wooded valley as a fairyland of magical creatures and The Fairytales of Lightfall Hollow as taking place here.

     Still, I miss the days when the hollow was wild and remote, and the road was desolate and untended. I miss the days when, not only did my parents believe the road safe enough to allow me to walk it alone as a little girl, a few years later, they also thought it okay to permit me to ride it solo on the back of one of the two donkeys we had here then.

     I miss those donkey rides, and I also miss sliding down the road’s untouched, snow-covered descents in a sled. Those rides were thrilling.

     Even more thrilling were the rides my uncle provided, where I sat in a wooden box chained to the back of his pickup truck and was dangerously dragged along, the box lurching, skidding, and whipping back and forth from one side of the road to the other.

     Fortunately, my parents never knew about those rides.

     I have had so many marvelous rides on the hollow’s road, and I have done a lot of running on it too, but through these almost seven decades, mostly I have walked the road. I have walked it in all kinds of weather and at all hours of day and night.  I have walked it in the light of the sun, moon, and stars, and I have walked it in darkness so dense I could not see my hand in front of my face. And then there was that still, sultry, fog-filled night thirty-some years ago when, as a mother-to-be in labor, I paced the road through the wee hours until the dawn broke, and the weather broke with it. The temperature plummeted, wind began to blow, snow began to fall, and later that day, the baby boy who gave me life was born.

     Speaking of life, as an old woman, I have come to see that, even now with all its changes, the road that runs through the heart of the hollow is as it has always been for me.

     The road is life.

     Composed of rough and hard stuff, it is full of bumps.

     It has holes that remain but briefly filled and flaws that are in constant need of repair.

     It is prone to falling into ruts.

     It is always dusty or muddy or icy. Never clear or clean or perfect.

     It twists and turns, and just when it’s moving along a smooth, easy, nice even plane, it starts to go uphill or drops into a dip. 

     Nonetheless, despite being a tough road to travel, despite the miserable bumps, holes, flaws, slips and slides in the muck and the cold, as well as the treacherous twists and turns, difficult uphills, and tortuous falls, the road is wondrous and so worth the journey.

     At least, that is how this old lady sees the road that runs through the heart of the hollow.